Creative Survival Quotes

Video artists being at the low end of the totem pole economically, one of the ways we survive is to go around showing work and giving these talks.

When writers die they become books, which is, after all, not too bad an incarnation.

I have to go on writing because I wouldn't be able to go on without writing. It is the only function that works for me, and without that function, I would die.

When you are a beginning film maker you are desperate to survive. The most important thing in the end is survival and being able to get to your next picture.

I always want to do music that inspires or influences another generation. You want what you create to live, be it sculpture or painting or music. Like Michelangelo, he said, “I know the creator will go, but his work survives. That is why to escape death, I attempt to bind my soul to my work.

Art goes into the world unarmed, vulnerable to every quirk of fate, and it must survive only by its power to move men not to destroy it.

Poems in a way are spells against death. They are milestones, to see where you were then from where you are now. To perpetuate your feelings, to establish them. If you have in any way touched the central heart of mankind's feelings, you'll survive.

The finest poems of the world have been expedients to get bread.

If you did not write every day, the poisons would accumulate and you would begin to die, or act crazy or both-you must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

The ability to "fantasize" is the ability to survive. It's wonderful to speak about this subject because there have been so many wrong-headed people dealing with it.... The so-called realists are trying to drive us insane, and I refuse to be driven insane.... We survive by fantasizing. Take that away from us and the whole damned human race goes down the drain.

Not to write, for many of us, is to die.

There's nothing wrong with struggle. Anytime I look back at a difficult phase of my life and see what grew out of it - the creative survival tactics - I think that the good is way better than the bad.

I'll write, because I'll give - You critics means to live; For should I not supply - The cause, the effect would die

I write every day, for most of the day, so it's just about turning into metaphor whatever's going on in my life, in the world, and in my head. Every nightmare, every moment of grief or joy or failure, is a moment I can convert into cash via words. I use everything. Turning life into stories is how I make sense of my experience.

Art is a way of survival.

To survive in a creative economy, you need basic instinct! You have to know and smell your viewer.

Not to write, for many of us, is to die. We must take ares each and every day, perhaps knowing that the battle cannot be entirely won, but fight we must, if only a gentle bout. The smallest effort to win means, at the end of each day, a sort of victory.

I feel like the writers that I'm drawn to, the writers that I really cling to, are the writers who seem to be writing out of a desperate act. It's like their writing is part of a survival kit. Those are the writers that I just absolutely cherish and carry with me everywhere I go.

I write for the same reason I breathe - because if I didn't, I would die.

If it turns out to be a hit, well, good luck dealing with fame. And if it's not a hit and you can still survive and make music you believe in, well, then you're truly blessed. I think that's where we are now.

Believe in yourself and in your own voice, because there will be times in this business when you will be the only one who does. Take heart from the knowledge that an author with a strong voice will often have trouble at the start of his or her career because strong,distinctive voices sometimes make editors nervous. But in the end, only the strong survive.

If you are born an artist, you have no choice but to fight to stay an artist.

I always believe you can't kill good movies, because somebody's in some room and will die unless it gets made.

Most artists are doing basically the same thing - staying off the streets.

People want to be successful, and they want to be acknowledged for what they do. Sometimes they make really great art and aren't. Historically, the best artists weren't. But their work survived.