Stephen Sondheim Quotes

I finally got to the point where I decided I don't care if it's good art or bad art - it's what I do. I enjoy doing it, and people like it.

My art completes my life.

I know it's a cliché to say I write for myself, but I write for myself.

All any artist can do is please themselves.

They say poets write mostly for themselves; if anyone else likes it, well and good, if not, it doesn't matter; certainly, not to me.

I have a desire to create more film, more beauty, more art, more love, but I don't feel desperate. It's not about creating or building a career.

It is not in life, but in art that self-fulfillment is to be found.

I, in the end, make art for myself.

I don't think the goal is, 'How big a star did you ever become?' I think the goal is, 'Were you able to express yourself?'

The most important thing for me as an artist is having an identity.

I don't write for a particular audience. I work as an artist, and I think the audience of one, which is the self, and I have to satisfy myself as an artist. So I always say that I write for the same people that Picasso painted for. I think he painted for himself.

I work as an artist, and I think the audience of one, which is the self, and I have to satisfy myself as an artist. So I always say that I write for the same people that Picasso painted for. I think he painted for himself.

I'm a singer, a writer and an actress - when I find something that I feel good enough about doing.

I suppose we'll make money off our album and our singles and stuff, but, like, they were made as we wanted them, exactly with what we had to say, and done exactly how we wanted them, right? And, like, we didn't put them out to make money. We put them out because we wanted to do them, do you know what I mean?

I don't make art to make money, I make art so I can make art.

The rule I stand by as an artist is definitely be yourself, and don't make music just for other people: make it for you first.

Everyone is an artist. Everyone is creative in their own way and that that creativity is a great thing. It's a human thing and it needs to be nurtured and it can help us go down life's path and help us to become deeper, richer, more satisfied human beings.

I paint for myself. I don't know how to do anything else, anyway. Also I have to earn my living, and occupy myself.

I had given up ( around 1950, fh) any ambition of making a career as an artist…..I had lost all interest in the art shown in galleries and museums, and I no longer aspired to fit in that world. I loved the paintings done by children, and my only desire was to do the same for my own pleasure.

It's not art for art's sake, it's art for my sake.

When people say they write for themselves, that's probably what they do. I will admit that I don't write for myself; I write to be read. I've got the reader in my mind all the time.

What one does in one's art, that is the breath of one's being. What one does in one's life, that is a bagatelle for the outsiders to fuss about.

An artist should write for himself & not for an audience. If the audience likes it, great. If not, they can keep away.

I have never expected anything from my work but the satisfaction I could get from it by the very fact of painting and saying what I couldn't say otherwise.

Art is made by the alone for the alone.