Artist Quotes · Page 326

One's art is just one's effort to wed oneself to the universe, to unify oneself through union.

— Robert Motherwell

[My art is] capable of liberating man from the tyranny of the 'practical, rational world.'

— Salvador Dali

Modern man creates fancy cars while losing the sacredness of his feet and lungs.

— Steve Ilg

I cannot live without art: it excites me, it challenges me, and it leads me to the next thing.

— Francisco Costa

My first Grammy nomination? I was 24 - I was nominated for best new artist of the year.

— John Prine

The spot paintings and spin paintings were trying to find mechanical ways to make paintings.

— Damien Hirst

I sort of had that fantasy of being one of the muses of Paris and hanging out with Toulouse Lautrec and Picasso.

— Bebe Buell

I think that Damien Hirst putting a shark in a bath of formaldehyde is nothing.

— William Klein

I started playing guitar and writing songs when I was 15. I think what mainly sparked my interest was just the fact…

— Kate Voegele

“This age needs rather men like Shakespeare, or Milton, or Pope; men who are filled with the strength of their cultures and…

— John Updike

New York has always had a love for Southern artists. There's no place else that makes me feel like the city does.…

— Justin Townes Earle

“My colleague deciphered some bits of the writing on the wolf-totem jar. He found a smattering of words and phrases that spoke…

— James Rollins

If you've been in the art world for more than eight years, you realize another generation is making the exact same work…

— Christopher Bollen

I want to thank anyone who spends part of their day creating...anybody who spends part of their day sharing their experience with…

— Steven Soderbergh

The Irish seem to want their artists to function as surrogate priests - sources of authority, founts of wisdom, people who will…

— Alex Johnston

The only artists I have ever known who are personally delightful are bad artists. Good artists exist simply in what they make,…

— Oscar Wilde

“Art must always stand guard against stirring emotions that lie outside the aesthetic: sexual arousal, terror, disgust, shock.”

— Milan Kundera

An inability to choose is a hallmark of anxiety... The too-anxious artist, afraid to choose, will halt dead in the water.

— Eric Maisel

I want to keep - this seems so corny - I want to keep growing as an artist.

— John Glover

Trophies or no trophies, we are all just striving to do some really good art and help people's lives with it.

— No I.D

I realized... that the artist is always alone. Early in life I had thought I needed other people to confirm or approve…

— Beverly Pepper

“Actual artists are like mythological creatures,' she heard herself opine. 'You hear about them, but a sighting's pretty rare.”

— Garth Risk Hallberg

The fact is that until I saw paintings as icons, I couldn't see why people painted at all.

— Mary Pratt

I believe strongly that the word 'protest' is no excuse for bad work. The artist must create.

— John Kani

Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere.

— Anonymous

I always keep doing things that I want to do... As an artist you need to keep growing.

— Neha Bhasin

My paintings are very strange - large and empty, like walls. Just the opposite of my writing, which is rich and juicy.

— Tom Robbins

[Miley Cyrus] got a fantastic voice. I do think she's a fantastic artist and does great songs. I wish her all the…

— Ed Sheeran

If I ever meet a writer or a painter, I don't presuppose that they are like the work they are presenting.

— PJ Harvey

If the (British) Arts Council give you money, they also tell you how to spend it.

— Neville Marriner

Under ordinary circumstances, bad art naturally gets sorted out and disappears. That is how history works when it is left alone to…

— Michael Kimmelman

Art is a fruit that grows in man, like a fruit on a plant, or a child in its mother's womb.

— Anonymous

I am not a specialist but a general practitioner in the world of the arts.

— Theodore Bikel

“We were poor, but we were happy. We didn’t have much, but we were painting. (Interview in Washington Mag)”

— Alfredo Arreguin

Abstract expressionism was the first American art that was filled with anger as well as beauty.

— Robert Motherwell

Making art is like giving a gift: evidence of your spirit and that you are here.

— Paddy Mitchell

Being an artist is a totally godlike thing to do - and I have a god complex.

— Laurie Anderson

Drawing makes you see things clearer, and clearer and clearer still, until your eyes ache.

— David Hockney

The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means.

— William Faulkner

I have a sense of mission in a way. I've always worked on being free, as a woman and as an artist.

— Yasmine Hamdan