artistic self-doubt Quotes

I would love to write a song with the Everly brothers. But it's probably best not to work with someone you admire: they'll just show up your inadequacies.

The thing is, I've been writing for a long time now, trying to be a poet for the last 40 years, and it's still very difficult not to second-guess myself when reading my own work.

I am not a jazz singer. I wouldn't place myself on that footing. I wouldn't even enter that arena.

Even Michelangelo on his deathbed thought he'd done nothing to ennoble art. He wanted to destroy his work-the Pieta! And this from the greatest artist who ever lived. Of course I am not comparing my work to Michelangelo's. But this eternal dissatisfaction of the artist is what I was talking about.

I'm not an impressionist as such, and I never will be, so the sketches where I was supposed to be a famous person probably weren't my best work.

When I do music, I have a hard time experiencing it like everyone else, because there's so much thought that goes into it. You can sometimes fool yourself into thinking it's better than what it is, which stops me from being creative on the next thing I do.

Film wise, I invariably look at my work and reckon I could have done it better. I'm also conscious that I'm in a profession where we get more praise than we should compared to the usefulness of what we do.

I get nervous calling myself an artist. I feel I'm more like an interpreter or a violinist, you know.

The greater the artist, the greater the doubt.

As a director, I wouldn't like me as an actor. As an actor, I wouldn't like me as a director.

I think I tend to destroy the better paintings, or those that have been better to a certain extent. I try and take them further, and they lose all their qualities, and they lose everything. I think I would say that I destroy all the better paintings.

Even at this late date, I go into my studio, and I think 'Is this going to be it? Is it the end?' You see, nearly everything terrorizes me. When an artist loses that terror, he's through.

I'm not sure I enjoyed doing [Gigi Does It]. I'm cool with just being an actor. If anything, I learned to be proud of being an actor.

It’s very difficult for me to appreciate my own songs as I criticise them a lot.

Self-consciousness is the enemy of all art, be it acting, writing, painting, or living itself, which is the greatest art of all.

The nature of being an artist in any field, but specifically in comedy, is that almost as soon as you finish something you hate it, and it feels dated, and not your best work.

You never know if it's any good until people respond to it. You know how it feels when you do it, but there's so many things involved. The thing you do realize is, if the movie isn't any good, then it's your fault. That's what you think about.

Contemporary poets are skeptical and suspicious even, or perhaps especially, about themselves. They publicly confess to being poets only reluctantly, as if they were a little ashamed of it. But in our clamorous times it's much easier to acknowledge your faults, at least if they're attractively packaged, than to recognize your own merits, since these are hidden deeper and you never quite believe in them yourself.

It is always hard for poets to believe that one says their poems are bad not because one is a fiend but because their poems are bad.

I'm not a natural songwriter.

If I hear a film clip, or I happen to see some image from a film - you go to a film festival, and they show some clip of the movies you've been in, most of the time I sit there and go, "Oh God, I should have... should have... that was terrible." But I think that's a natural part of this work, because really, your work is never over. Of course I can leave it alone and walk off the set and never think about it again when it's done. But your work is really ongoing all the time.

I lose faith every time I have to start a new page, and this is no joke. I've occasionally been criticized over the past couple of years for publicly "complaining" about how difficult drawing comics is, yet I've only mentioned it so that the younger cartoonists who are trying it out and finding it difficult and painful realize that they're not alone. There's not really any set way of learning how to do this, and it's always a struggle to improve, and, more importantly, see accurately whether or not one's work is communicating any shred of feeling or truth at all.

When you're a producer and an artist you're very critical of yourself. I like to produce other people, but I'm not that good at producing myself.

I write my own songs, and I only see their flaws.

The thing that I'm just scared to death of is that someday I'm going to wake up and bore somebody with a film.