Hubert Selby Jr. Quotes

Writing is a subtle art that is reached mostly by self-discovery and experimentation.

I am here on Earth to express myself, and the many media of art are my magic carpets that allow me the freedom to do so.

Every artist makes himself born. It is very much harder than the other time, and longer.

I don't like to say I have given my life to art. I prefer to say art has given me my life.

Joanne' is a progression for me. It was about going into the studio and forgetting that I was famous.

The importance of art is in the process of doing it, in the learning experience where the artist interacts with whatever is being made.

As an artist, I want to explore as much as I can.

Art is something in which you are never an expert at any point of time. It's something you hone all the time and something which is elusive all the time.

All the traumas I went through separating art from writing don't exist anymore. That's why I love being in rock 'n' roll. It's a whole life thing.

I know now that everybody in the arts is forever a beginner. Experience counts for a great deal and very little. Every night onstage I feel I am starting from scratch, still not quite sure what I am doing and where I am going, thrown by the simplest thing that goes wrong.

Making art is a rite of initiation. People change their souls.

If you're going to be an artist, all life is your subject. And all your experience is part of your art. A youngster told me recently that he was going to give himself a year to see if he has talent. A year! It takes a lifetime to see if you have it. Painting is total engagement.

For me becoming a painter was an Everest, in terms of what I thought a painter was. There are many roads to becoming an artist. For me it wasn't art school. I didn't have that go to art school and then get a gallery. It's more like, how deep is your inner library to cull from. It's certainly not about technical prowess, just about depth of investigation. It takes time. I had 15 years of painting under my belt before my first New York show. I was glad to have that. It's a good thing to spend your twenties getting your craft.

I want to keep - this seems so corny - I want to keep growing as an artist.

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 look at the artistic process as like experiencing the world, channeling it through your personality and sending it back out there. That's the process.

Being an artist, it's all a journey, and you learn where the subtle patterns lie.

Art is not a thing; it is a way.

When I work alone, it can be like dabbling with a canvas. Maybe you paint over bits, and it starts to form its own life and lead you off in a direction. It becomes an intuitive, subconscious process.

Every movie I make teaches me something. That's why I keep making them.

Artwork is not like a commercial business; there is no such thing as a schedule for art. You can't hurry art.

Artists live in unknown spaces and give themselves over to following something unknown.

You don't have to be Picasso or Rembrandt to create something. The fun of it, the joy of creating, is way high above anything else to do with the art form.

I think that one's art is a growth inside one. I do not think one can explain growth. It is silent and subtle. One does not keep digging up a plant to see how it grows.

I'm not an Expressionist. I love to look at de Kooning, but I've got this kind of secret life, and that is something that pleases me. I have to try and make something out of it.