Creative Distinction Quotes

I don't work on poems and essays at once. They walk on different legs, speak with different tongues, draw from different parts of the psyche. Their paces are also different.

Although most of us know Vincent van Gogh in Arles and Paul Gauguin in Tahiti as if they were neighbors -- somewhat disreputable but endlessly fascinating -- none of us can name two French generals or department store owners of that period. I take enormous pride in considering myself an artist, one of the necessaries.

I can write songs, I've had songs in movies, but I can't compose film scores, you know?

When I first met Benny Goodman he wouldn't talk about anything but clarinets, mouthpieces, reeds, etc. When I tried to change the subject, he said 'But that's what we have in common. We both play clarinet.' I said, 'No, Benny, that's where we're different. You play clarinet, I play music.'

The world of painting has nothing to do with the art world.

'Twin Peaks' is the one thing in my career that I can really look back on, that I really respect and love and honor as something that's different. The one thing that I can hang onto.

I think that there's a difference between being an entertainer and being an artist.

You have to be, become, the musician who can't be replaced.

I'm not just a rapper. I'm an entertainer. That's the difference.

Remember that I wrote a pavane for a dead princess, and not a dead pavane for a princess!

I'd much rather be in a movie that people have really strong feelings about than one that makes a hundred million dollars but you can't remember because it's just like all the others.

I'm not a writer. I like being a reader.

Sometimes my characters are not myself.

I'm not a character in any of my books.

I work hard to be able to set myself apart from everything else that's going on in the trap genre.

I feel like there are comic book artists who are comic book artists, and then there's comic book artists who are cartoonists.

Talent wears well, genius wears itself out; talent drives a snug brougham in fact; genius, a sun-chariot in fancy.

Please don't refer to me as "channeling Mark Twain." I'm an actor. Not a channeler. That word is an iPhone shortcut. Acting is more eloquent than that.

I think I'm a vocal genius, not a musical genius. I like background vocals. I consider myself a voice, not a singer. A voice is a sound, and singing is what you do with that sound.

People say if you're doing an art project, that's different from a book, but I honestly don't see it. I try and try, and I just don't.

I would love for people to think that I am as quick, clever, smart and heroic as the characters that I write, but those characters are characters.

If you put all the songs together that I've written on band records, and put it up next to my solo record, there's definitely a different kind of feel than Billy's songs.

When I'm acting I don't sing, and when I'm recording I'm not acting.

I try to make films, not movies. I've never liked the expression 'movie', but it sounds elitist to say that.

The non-artists among us are always terribly busy, but finally disappear without a trace.