Artist's Life Quotes

An artist needs to live to create, and to live means to suffer.

I slept in van Gogh's bed. I worked in the room where he painted. I saw the place where he was cared for when he cut off his ear. I lived in the jail cell where he stayed. And I looked out the window. You remember that picture of the cornfields through the bars? That was what I saw.

It is not a torment to be an artist. It is a privilege.

I always have felt that most people don't have the first idea about what musicians, in the traditional sense - I don't mean in the modern media fake way, but traditionally - what they went through, what their lives were like.

If I had the capabilities of being something other than I am, I would. It's no fun being an artist. You know what it's like, writing, it's torture.

A writer is a maker, not a man of action: his private life is of no concern to anybody but himself, his family and his friends.

The naturalness of life... the sense of community is, I think, a very important factor in an artist's life.

I include myself in the posters because I feel like it forms a more intimate relationship between the artist and the person passing by. And it's important to include some vulnerability and use fears and rejections and various aspects from my own life so people look at my work as more than greeting card fodder.

I always liked the Van Gogh story because I was terribly involved in that.

The artist's life is to be where life is, active life, found in neither ivory tower nor concrete shelter; he must be out listening to everything, looking at everything, and thinking it all out afterward.

As an artist you organize your life so that you get a chance to paint, a window of time, but that's no guarantee you'll create anything worth all your effort. You're always haunt by the idea you're wasting your life.

The Notorious B.I.G.'s album 'Ready to Die' is an incredible chart of a man's life - it begins with his birth, you hear his mother giving birth, and it goes through the decades.

I make my living writing songs and, you know, I'm not a show biz kind of guy.

I wonder if the artist ever lives his life--he is so busy recreating it.

You just have to work really hard and throw everything into it. ... It's really hard to be an artist, and even if you do work really hard, there's no guarantee about anything. There's no advice you can give someone that things will somehow work out, but you can talk to people about how they can make art a big part of their life.

What experience has shown me is that it takes your life to become an artist.

Dawn is about luminosity and so is the iPhone... The little drawings of the dawn are done while I'm still in bed... If you're in my kind of business you'd be a fool to sleep through that... Artists can't work office hours, can they?

When I read a review, 90% of the review is about my lifestyle, and the last two sentences are about the record.

Auditioning is a horrible experience because you know you are being absolutely scrutinized and judged. There are days where you can do it and days where it's just not happening, and I feel like that's how it is with all artists; you have some days it kind of works.

The artist must express the summation of his feeling, knowing and believing through the unity of his life and work.

Watercolors is the first and the last thing an artist does.

Doin' music, musicians and artists, we have the advantage of doin' something that is our passion. At the same time it's fun, and it's like a dream to other people, and live off it, feed yourself off of it. 'Cause it's hard, you know what I"m sayin'? You really gotta grind and you really gotta love and enjoy what you do, if you're gonna make it. 'Cause if you don't believe in yourself, if you don't got people believin' in you, people aren't gonna buy it.

I'm an artist, and I need to work, like everybody. We need to be challenged and that we're getting up and doing something with our lives.

I've been on the road for so long that it's a part of my being. Even after all these years, I love playing. I love recording. I love writing. I love rehearsing. I love touring. I love all that stuff.

In an artist's life, death is perhaps not the most difficult thing.