Leonard Nimoy Quotes

I draw to shock myself out of a too-easy rhythm - I may begin with no conception whatever, an image emerges . I rub it out and begin again, searching for its counterpart. When it appears I invariably find that the thing I draw is at my elbow, it is out of the window, or has been standing at my front door for a long time.

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.

Most artists don't understand what they do, and I don't think we have to. Other people do that better - they understand what I do better than I do!

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.

Asking an artist to talk about his work is like asking a plant to discuss horticulture.

The artist does not really create; he discovers.

Artists can no more speak about their work, than plants can speak about horticulture.

If you're actually allowing your creative part to control your writing rather than a more commercial instinct or motive, then you'll find that all sorts of interesting things will bubble up to the surface.

I always say, and I truly believe this, that my work is three steps ahead of me. I have an idea for something and I tend to feel like it's leading me and I'll follow the process through, and it's not until after I've seen it that I truly understand why I'm doing this.

From the very first movie I ever made to the current time, there have been times between action and cut when I've sensed some kind of new dimension that I haven't been familiar with before.

Unlike a lot of choreographers, I don't always start with the music. I often start with a visual artist, and then find music that fits the world of that visual artist.

You don't see artists sitting around a lot, talking about ideology. They find out what they believe, and what they're doing, by doing it.

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

We live in an age where the artist is forgotten. He is a researcher. I see myself that way.

Real painters understand with a brush in their hand.

I've always said I'm more influenced in what I do by artists, and how they work, how they think, and the freedom they're given to work and think, than I really am by other writers.

Art challenges technology, but technology inspires the art.

When a story or part of a story comes to me, I turn it over in my mind a long time before starting to write. I might make notes or take long drives or who knows what. By the time I give myself permission to write, I know certain things, though not everything. I know where the story is headed, and I know certain crucial points along the way.

I don't start a piece knowing exactly what effect it's going to have. There is a seed of an idea that I could never articulate, right at the beginning of the piece, literally like one cell.

My second album was written while I was on the road promoting the first record. I tried to take my personal experiences and elevate them to universal experiences, so that I wasn't writing songs about living on a tour bus or being on a TV set for the first time.

Every now and then, I feel terribly uncomfortable with what I'm working on, and then I think maybe I am an artist. I'm not very articulate about it, but I do know that you have to follow your gut.

I don't want real life necessarily to be seen only as a context to heighten the deepness my work.

I think one of the privileges of being a filmmaker is the opportunity to remain a kind of perpetual student.

Every picture has its own demands, and every picture stimulates something within you to tell it a certain way. I don't know what that is; I don't think too much about that.

You can play anyone if you're open enough. It's a form of possession. Each time you work on something, you allow yourself to be possessed by creating the environment for it. Then you allow the possession to happen - but not at the expense of your sanity or of your identity.