Neil Gaiman Quotes

Sometimes life is hard. Things go wrong—in life and in love and in business and in friendship and in health and in all the other ways that life can go wrong. And when things get tough, this is what you should do: make good art. . . . Someone on the internet thinks what you’re doing is stupid or evil or it’s all been done before: make good art. Probably things will work out somehow, eventually time will take the sting away, and it doesn’t even matter. Do what only you can do best: make good art.

Life is sometimes hard. Things go wrong, in life and in love and in business and in friendship and in health and in all other ways that life can go wrong. And when things get tough, this is what you should do. Make good art.

Great trouble breeds great art, I think.

I have always tried to teach my players to be fighters. When I say that, I don't mean put up your dukes and get in a fistfight over something. I'm talking about facing adversity in your life. There is not a person alive who isn't going to have some awfully bad days in their lives. I tell my players that what I mean by fighting is when your house burns down, and your wife runs off with the drummer, and you've lost your job and all the odds are against you. What are you going to do? Most people just lay down and quit. Well, I want my people to fight back.

When things go wrong, this is what you should do. Make good art.

I do whatever pushes me hardest. It's coming at me and I try to... it's like uninvited guest and I have to wrestle them out the door or through the window - get them out and get over with them quickly.

When things get tough... Make good art.

I decided to make music again at a time when I couldn't have had more obstacles.

I think most art comes out of poverty and hard times.

My parents taught me to believe that through the creative act, we're able to transcend and give a response to desecration.

If you're going to reach for it, reach all the way for it. Albums like 'Purple Rain' and 'Thriller' and those kind of records, you had to reach far above the din of cynicism and modern living to get to that place, against all the odds.

I view art as an inspirational tool.

Simply, the majority of the most interesting filmmakers are the ones confronted with difficult situations. Their creativity blows a hole in the wall and lets in the light.

My strength comes from my mom. Just seeing what she had to go through to raise us, she wouldn't make excuses; she wouldn't put her head down. So I guess I looked at adversity right in the eye and took it on.

You'll encounter difficulties at any job, and the best way for me to get through them is via endurance.

Music is the first thing I didn't give up.

If I saw the art around me that I liked, then I wouldn't do art.

The experienced mountain climber is not intimidated by a mountain - he is inspired by it. The persistent winner is not discouraged by a problem--he is challenged by it. Mountains are created to be conquered; adversities are designed to be defeated; problems are sent to be solved. It is better to master one mountain than a thousand foothills.

Don't think about making art.

To make art you need to be inspired.

Out of pain and problems have come the sweetest songs, the most poignant poems, the most gripping stories.

Give yourself an impossible task and solve it - then you've got a really good story.

Naked I came into the world, but brush strokes cover me, language raises me, music rhythms me. Art is my rod and staff, my resting place and shield, and not mine only, for art leaves nobody out. Even those from whom art has been stolen away by tyranny, by poverty, begin to make it again. If the arts did not exist, at every moment, someone would begin to create them, in song, out of dust and mud, and although the artifacts might be destroyed, the energy that creates them is not destroyed.

We all understand situations where it's swim or drown. Sometimes we surprise ourselves when we start swimming and see how well we can do it.