Artistic Competition Quotes

An artist is somebody who enters into competition with God.

Everything around a writer, or musician in the record business, probably everything in all the United States or in all of western civilization, is about competition.

I intend to do a large painting of the cliff at Etretat, although it is terribly bold of me to do so after Courbet has painted it so admirably, but I will try to do it in a different way.

I'm a catalogue artist: I compete with Bob Dylan.

Look at Paul McCartney, look at Elton John. They're jealous of Justin Timberlake. I'm sure they were jealous of me when I was in my imperial phase.

I've been blessed because there are a lot of great singers out there that didn't make it past their first album.

I wanna show you I can out-rap your favorite rappers. I wanna show you I can out-produce your favorite producers. So I'm constantly getting better and I understand that there's always room for growth, especially in quality, sonic quality.

There's no way I can compete with someone who can write rap or rock and roll. Nor do I wish to. But I've always kept up to date with music changes. I worked very hard not to type myself.

I'm as good as anybody out there lyrically and conceptually and can go toe to toe with the best of them throughout history.

I write the vocals last, because I wanted to invent the music first and push the music to the level that I had to compete against it.

In New York and L.A., there is sort of that silent competition to be on the cutting edge of something. You end up having a conversation with how the world receives your work, especially if you are writing narrative, not fiction. Sometimes it is an awkward conversation. It's like group therapy.

I don't believe in competitions between artists. This is insane. Who has the authority to say someone is better?

I'm a musician and, just as the critics are hard on me, I'm hard on the critics.

Hip-hop is a competition culture. It's based around, "My DJ is better than you. My graffiti artist is better than you."

I think it's important to say something. If you're making music it's kinda' like, oh, cool, so is everyone else.

I never noticed competing with other generations. There's competition within your own generation, but that competition is good. Maybe you're annoyed that somebody's getting more money than you are, but what's really annoying is if someone's painting a better painting than you're making. So it's something to think about and work toward and stay focused on.

All those crazy Impressionist painters in France were friends but they would write about how jealous and competitive they were. That's what makes good art.

When a great artist gets my attention, I pursue it. If I don't, someone else will, you know what I'm saying?

I think we all have really busy lives now and there's so much stimulation, there's so many artists, there's so much music, there's so much art, there's so much everything in a world it's hard to get people to focus on 12 songs of yours at once.

Competitions are for horses, not artists.

I can't fathom writers married to writers and musicians married to musicians. There's your enemy in bed beside you.

Literature, of course, is not a contest.

When I hear a great new record, especially when it's by someone that I respect and admire, then a part of me is like, Why didn't I think of that? Why didn't I write that record? It makes you sick, but in a way it can be a great thing. It makes you want to go back to the lab and start writing again. Maybe it will inspire you to try a little harder.

It would be horrible if there was no competition. It's what people want to see - they either like you or they don't. Not everybody likes Van Gogh. Or Bob Dylan! So you have Neil Young...or Ozzy Osbourne.