I subscribe to the myth that an artist's creativity comes from torment. Once that's fixed, what do you draw on?
David Byrne

To some extent I happily don't know what I'm doing. I feel that it's an artist's responsibility to trust that.
David Byrne

I think no artist can claim to have any access to the truth, or an authentic version of an event. But obviously they have slightly better means at their disposal because they have their art to energize whatever it is they're trying to write about. They have music.
Thom Yorke

All works of art are commissioned in the sense that no artist can create one by a simple act of will but must wait until what he believes to be a good idea for a work comes to him.
W. H. Auden

Of all possible subjects, travel is the most difficult for an artist, as it is the easiest for a journalist.
W. H. Auden

You have to find what makes you stable in the storm. Then, no matter what's happening round you, no matter what the hype or the publicity, you can still manage to make leaps in your work as an artist.
Jimmy Smits

The artist is the medium between his fantasies and the rest of the world.
Federico Fellini

One must be a living man and a posthumous artist.
Jean Cocteau

An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.
Jean Cocteau

Asking an artist to talk about his work is like asking a plant to discuss horticulture.
Jean Cocteau

An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.
Jean Cocteau

The arrogance of the artist is a very profound thing, and it fortifies you.
James A. Michener

I suppose an artist takes the elements of his life and rearranges them and then has them perceived by others as though they were the elements of their lives.
Paul Simon

Being an artist doesn't mean that you're a good artist. That was the bargain I first made with myself: I'd say, I'm an artist, but I'm not really very good.
Paul Simon

An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's.
Jonas Salk

I'm an artist, and the need to get inside myself and be creative and be other people is a part of who I am. I don't imagine I'll abandon that completely.
Gwyneth Paltrow

Reading is an art form, and every man can be an artist.
Edwin Louis Cole

Luxury is the wolf at the door and its fangs are the vanities and conceits germinated by success. When an artist learns this, he knows where the danger is.
Tennessee Williams

The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art's audience. Art has increasingly become the concern of the artist and the bafflement of the public.
Paul Gauguin

If you see something is going wrong within politics and the world today, then some Hip Hop artist is gonna come along and get straight with it. If they think that there's a lot of racism going on then there's another Hip Hop artist who's gonna come out and speak their mind.
Afrika Bambaataa