Starving Artist Quotes

In my early days, I was about 145 pounds. I was really a starving artist; the poster child for starving artists.

I hung onto Hollywood by the skin of my teeth, and at first I fought over every piece of bread. Later, I got very small parts.

Painting pictures didn't make me a lot of money. I have to eat.

Somehow, the French got this idea of the starving artist. Very romantic, except it's not so romantic for the starving artist.

Unfortunately - as I have experienced first-hand, as many artists have - there's a gaping hole between platinum and non-existent. There's no in-between.

Another year is fast approaching. Go be that starving artist you’re afraid to be. Open up that journal and get poetic finally. Volunteer. Suck it up and travel. You were not born here to work and pay taxes. You were put here to be part of a vast organism to explore and create. Stop putting it off. The world has much more to offer than what’s on 15 televisions at TGI Fridays. Take pictures. Scare people. Shake up the scene. Be the change you want to see in the world.

I remembered my New Orleans days, living on two five-cent candy bars a day for weeks at a time in order to have leisure to write. But starvation, unfortunately, didn't improve art. It only hindered it. A man's soul was rooted in his stomach. A man could write much better after eating a porterhouse steak and drinking a pint of whiskey than he could ever write after eating a nickel candy bar. The myth of the starving artist was a hoax.

It's nearly impossible to make a living in the arts.

My parents did not discourage me but could not understand how I could make a living by art. Their idea of an artist was a person who was condemned to starvation.

I was so hungry when I started attempting acting. Not even to be a professional. Just to find out if I could act.

Even St. Teresa said, "I can pray better when I'm comfortable," and she refused to wear her haircloth shirt or starve herself. I don't think living in cellars and starving is better for an artist than it is for anybody else.

Most actors can't make any kind of living.

I didn't really go the starving-artist route. I kind of went and did massive, commercial things.

I was planning on being a starving artist.

I am, as they say, the classic starving artist.

I think every American actor wants to be a movie star. But I never wanted to do stupid movies, I wanted to do films. I vowed I would never do a commercial, nor would I do a soap opera - both of which I did as soon as I left the Acting Company and was starving.

When I was playing bluegrass, I was living down in West Hollywood - starving.

When you're a starving artist, you make do. It didn't matter that I didn't know where my rent was coming from.

I don't want to give people the wrong advice to follow their dreams no matter what, because it's not fun to be a starving artist. But on the other hand, life is short, and if you are burning with a passion to do something, then do it. Work hard, study hard at it, and don't give up.