Terry Gross Quotes

A collection is not just one basic idea. It comes from something that is in the air, something you suddenly like and put down on paper and then work out.

One does not set out with the idea that I've just had a great idea and now I'm going to go and carry it out. Almost all art that's made like that doesn't go anywhere.

I think the pairing of your material practice with your subject is something that is the constant concern of every artist for time immemorial.

Sometimes for a lot of new artists, they don't have a vision, really, or know what they want to say; it's kind of drawn out for them. But me, because I'm such a transcendental thinker, it's always like a journey and an adventure with each project. It's like going through a different doorway each time.

I just like to choose projects that will allow me as an artist to make my art.

I don't believe that a writer does something wonderful spontaneously. I believe it's the result of years of living, of study, reading, his very personality and temperament. At one particular moment, all these come together and the artist 'expresses' himself.

I think with anything where you delve into the back story of an artist, it kind of explains their work more intimately.

I just want my work to be part of the elemental world.

In any art, you don't know in advance what you want to say - it's revealed to you as you say it. That's the difference between art and illustration.

The little dissatisfaction which every artist feels at the completion of a work forms the germ of a new work.

What an artist learns matters little. What he himself discovers has a real worth for him, and gives him the necessary incitement to work.

As an artist, I understand that, and I value the creative input of the artist.

I create work, and I devote myself to the creative process, and I try to, you know, stay pure in that process and be worthy of the messages that I receive.

That's what I've always wanted to do - work with my favorite writers and make something from scratch with them that we can feel like didn't exist before we came in the room.

I think the greatest privilege you have as an artist is time to nurture what you want to make; that's super luxurious. For you to rush into something, that doesn't feel fun to me. I'm living life in order to be able to write about it.

For me, working on original material is very important.

I'm not an Abstraction Expressionist, but I think dedication to paintings comes from an early interest in that work.

Even if you're not releasing songs, the act of creativity is important. That's the part I love, when you're in the moment. The rest of it I'm not particularly interested in at all.

Art is not the kind of thing where you get what you put into it all the time. So I learned to not expect anything other than the sort of joy of having a poem in front of me.

We're all inspired by what has come before us, but hope to use the inspiration to create our own. That's the artist's journey. It's a pretty amazing path.

When a painting is finished, it's like a new born child, and the artist himself must have time for understanding. How then do you expect an amateur to understand that which the artist dos not yet comprehend.

The joy of the creative process, minute by minute, hour after hour, day by day, is the sublime path to true happiness.

And if you can find out something about the laws of your own growth and vision as well as those of photography you may be able to relate the two, create an object that has a life of its own, which transcends craftsmanship. That is a long road, and because it must be your own road nobody can teach it to you or find it for you. There are no shortcuts, no rules.

I'm a painter, that's where I started out, at four years old, that was my first love as far as expression. So, I'm not a painter in the sense of, "Please come see my paintings" but, I do understand the value of not looking over the artist's shoulder while the work is in progress.

Art is that which comes to a man, and stands between himself and an implacable witness: the work.