Artistic Timing Quotes

I had so much out there, the world was going crazy about 'Comes Alive!' I didn't need to go and rush into something else. You're only as good as your last record, so don't put one out for a while.

Timing has a lot to with art.

The right time to record is when you're not quite ahead of yourself.

Beethoven was ahead of the times, Bach behind them.

All art is contemporary art because it had to be made when it was now.

In general, in painting sometimes people like Picasso or somebody are not very well known in the beginning, sometimes they become well known just before they die, or sometimes after they have died. I think these people start to be artists after they've stopped existing.

It is necessary for the birthing process to begin to move in its own organic time. It is necessary that the artist have this sense of timing, that he or she respect... periods of receptivity as part of the mystery of creativity and creation.

Now a lot of people tell me that 'Daud' was ahead of its times. But when it came out, it was panned more than any of my films.

I've had many songs where I've gone, 'Oh, my God, this song is going to be huge!' but it wasn't the right artist, or something just didn't happen. It didn't make the song any worse. It just didn't line up. That does happen.

I didn't write any fiction until I was past thirty.

I don't think that writer's block exists really. I think that when you're trying to do something prematurely, it just won't come. Certain subjects just need time, as I've learned over and over again. You've got to wait before you write about them.

I'd like to be able to be more topical and timely and more of-the-moment and I think the way to do that is, instead of waiting until I have twelve songs to release all at once, just to release them as I come up with them.

A great artist is always before his time or behind it.

You can time a part perfectly and play it badly. And some people have very individual offbeat timing, which is their own. It works simply because they are who they are.

The record company felt wisely that we should get something out before I left 'Hamilton' or around awards time, and that deadline was not easy.

Music is...the coordination between man and time.

There is something about a poet which leads us to believe that he died, in many cases, as long as 20 years before his birth.

Bands who are in their early 20s today, they are living in their own time and they have a series of parameters they have to work around. Ten years ago, our reality was spending a lot more time in obscurity before anyone really knew who we were. I don't feel like I have any real advice to give anybody who is starting a band today. As Mike Watt said, "You know, not everyone has the ability to be born at the same time." We wanted to be like R.E.M., but the reality is that 15 years after R.E.M. was putting out those records, the playing field had changed drastically as well.

Music and comedy are so linked. The rhythm of comedy is con­nected to the rhythm of music. They’re both about creating tension and knowing when to let it go. I’m always surprised when somebody funny is not musical.

The first album didn't become successful until the second was practically written.

The arts must study their occasions; they must stand modestly aside until they can slip in fitly into the interstices of life.

Sometimes things just aren't of their time, and they take a minute to catch on, or they find an audience later. Sometimes bizarre little films are the ones that everyone remembers later. With most big major blockbusters, people will have already forgotten about it two weeks after it came out.