Artist Quotes

She was in awe of all his work. 'How do you do it? she asked.He smiled and said, 'By loving you.

~ Kamand Kojouri

I romanticize life the way artists see scenery or a dreamer gazes up at the stars.

~ Anastasia Bolinder

Creativity is the brain's invisible muscle -- that when used and excercised routinely -- becomes better and stronger.

~ Ashley Ormon

The artistic life is a long and lovely suicide precisely because it involves the negation of self; as Highsmith imagined herself as her characters, so Ripley takes on the personae of others and in doing so metamorphoses himself into a 'living' work of art. A return to the 'real life' after a period of creativity resulted in a fall in spirits, an agony Highsmith felt acutely. She voiced this pain in the novel via Bernard's quotation of an excerpt from Derwatt's notebook: 'There is no depression for the artist except that caused by a return to the self'.

~ Andrew Wilson

A very fine artist can take something quite ordinary and, through sheer artistry and willpower, turn it into a work of art.

~ Truman Capote

The true artist is not proud, he unfortunately sees that art has no limits; he feels darkly how far he is from the goal; and though he may be admired by others, he is sad not to have reached that point to which his better genius only appears as a distant, guiding sun. I would, perhaps, rather come to you and your people, than to many rich folk who display inward poverty.

~ Ludwig Van Beethoven

Not every artistic person should have to be a photographer, but every photographer should be artistic.

~ Pradeepa Pandiyan

Every piece of art has a buyer. Only Time decides when the right buyer will see it.

~ Suzy Kassem

If God could transcribe my heart, it'd still read I love you.

~ Jenim Dibie

That kind of pursuit is not beneficial to mankind: art for self aggrandizement at the cost of love.

~ Anuradha Bhattacharyya

When she started with the first empty canvas, she didn’t know what she was going to paint, she just let her paint brushes glide and they religiously followed the trajectory of her angst; the choice of colours and the strokes, they were all a reflection of what was going through her mind. The reds were the embers within her that refused to die. The blues were the rare instances when she was spent by her grief. The blacks were her moments of absolute weakness, the colour of the bottomless pit within her that she had plunged into, falling through and through. The brush strokes moved around blank canvases like snakes with fangs of elixir that filled her scars with a deluge of hope and a gale of faith in herself. The colours spoke to her in whispers, narrating their own tale while she poured out hers to them. They allowed her to channel her life through them. They listened. They cared. They laughed. They cried. They reassured her that there was life waiting ahead, staring at her past, urging her forward with eager arms. And Preeti rushed into them with her brush in hand that rose along with her and fell along with her.

~ Faraaz Kazi

I create beautiful art, so I can look back on the life my body fell short of in such a way that it brings me peace.

~ Nikki Rowe

Great artists need great clients.

~ I.m. Pei

It is by continuing to put out good work that the artist best shows his gratitude.

~ Criss Jami

All forms of art are parallel expressions. Writing is not unlike painting or other artistic endeavors. Each artistic endeavor is an expression of the mystery of the world. The job of the artist is to deepen that mystery, express reverence for the mystery of life, and explore the enigmatic aspects of human nature.

~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Creating art is paradoxical because an artist seeks to express truth by penetrating and destroying illusions. Art is always the outpouring of a mind striving to achieve the impossible reconciliation of all the fragmented shards that make people human: frivolous amusements, idle moments, feelings of tenderness and pain, stored memories, future expectations, and unquenchable thirst to experience love and witness beauty.

~ Kilroy J. Oldster

She puts away four small plastic cups of red wine and then stares at a painting of a topless girl with a large silver sword for a half hour and then she begins to think: You call this art? This isn’t art! This is a joke! All of you are a joke! Fuck you and fuck Jeff Koons and the rest of those ‘80s art-star wannabes. Where’s the art that makes people weep? Where’s the art that makes people want to go to church? None of this is the least bit interesting. All of this stuff, all of this is so self-aware. It’s for ironic art snobs. I want something brilliant. I want something stunning. I want something that makes me look in wonder…

~ Joe Meno

No one cares about the artist Kafka, who troubles us with his puzzling aesthetic, because we'd rather have Kafka as the fusion of experience and work, the Kafka who had a difficult relationship with his father and didn't know how to deal with women.

~ Milan Kundera

He printed business cards celebrating his shift. They read, 'Ars gratia pecuniae.' Translated, it meant, 'Art for money's sake.

~ Kliph Nesteroff

If someone says something about your art that makes you feel bad, disregard it and joyfully make more art.

~ Gayle Wray

I can certainly identify with The Villain. A Villain is someone who has a past, who is strongly opinionated, fearless, doesn't get intimated by anything, and went beyond suffering. It's an empowerment figure.

~ Nuno Roque

Sometimes people are shocked by what I do, but I'm not trying to be liked, I speak my mind and I don't care what people think. I truly do not compromise on who I am.

~ Nuno Roque

I love the idea of reincarnation, so just in case it doesn't exist, I decided to be different people in the same lifetime.

~ Nuno Roque

I'm a Baroque person. More than Baroque, I'm a Rococo person. I don't draw straight lines.

~ Nuno Roque

[N]othing is more easily corrupted than an artist.

~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Some artists benefit less from being interviewed than they do from being left alone.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

A red nose is the clown's mask and my moustache is mine.

~ Nuno Roque

I don't want realism. I want magic. I live magic. I am magic.

~ Oksana Rus

Nothing seems to me more tragic than the pressures we put on artists to do what we think we'll like, and our refusal to prize what is most ornery and special about them.

~ Marcia B. Siegel

I assert that the art of sculpture, among all the arts connected with design, is at least seven times greater than any other, for the following reason: why, sir, a statue of true sculpture ought to have seven points of view, which ought all to boast equal excellence.

~ Benvenuto Cellini

Art might be beautiful even though the artist is not.

~ Debasish Mridha

When you master the art of work, then your life becomes a work of art...and you're the artist and no one else paints your life for you.

~ Sotero M Lopez Ii

Try and make them understand that while artists can recycle their suffering in their art, I didn't know what to do with mine.

~ Viola Di Grado

Yes, she is.” His eyes remained on Olivia, but she wasn’t aware he was watching her. “With art, I believe anything created with profound heart is captured compulsively beautifully.

~ Maria La Serra

Trauma and pain are the foundations of art. I believe that. When tragedy strikes, however, a muralist or a watercolorist has the opportunity to be a human being in the moment and an artist afterward. Faced with the death of a loved one, a sculptor or portraitist can first grieve, suffer, and heal--then create. Most artists go through life this way. They can react normally to the trials and tribulations of the human experience. They can pass through the world with compassion and comradeship. They can make their art later. Outside, elsewhere, beyond. But photography is immediate. It does not offer the luxury of time. Faced with blood, death, or transformation, a photographer has no choice but to reach for the camera. An artist first, a human being afterward. Photography is a neutral record of all events, a chronicle of things both sublime and terrible. By necessity, this work is made without emotion, without connection, without love.

~ Abby Geni

But Hannah's friend didn’t understand the volatile balancing act between art and sanity, that the act of creation was like walking a tightrope during an earthquake. She didn’t understand Hannah’s stupid need for validation, or that the size of the audience increased the stakes and multiplied the fear. She didn’t understand that creativity was dangerous, that, yes, there were some people who could stand before a canvas, paint a sunset that would bring the world to its knees, and return to their loved ones as a complete person who didn’t hurt, didn’t cry, didn’t spill blood to appease the host of fickle muses. But Hannah did. Hannah’s best ideas—sometimes her only ideas—were buried beneath the skin.

~ Jake Vander-Ark

Dance is the language of artistic kinesis.

~ Pablito Greco

In time, all great masterpieces turn into shameless creatures who laugh at their creators.

~ Erol Ozan

An artist reveals his naked soul in his work - and so, gentle reader, do you when you respond to it.

~ Ayn Rand

That day I behaved like a good artist, one whose job is to build rather than break.

~ Anuradha Bhattacharyya