Artist Quotes - page 2

An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture. (Jean Cocteau)
An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose. View quote
Langston Hughes
The task of the artist at any time is uncompromisingly simple to discover what has not yet been done, and to do it. View quote
Craig Raine
I don't know what people find or like in me, I'm hopelessly commonplace! ... Current appreciation of my work is a bit "highbrow", I've always considered myself a popular artist. View quote
Maxfield Parrish
To be an artist you have to give up everything, including the desire to be a good artist. View quote
Jasper Johns
The artist discards all theories, both his own and those of others. He forgets everything when he is in front of his canvas. View quote
Georges Rouault
The conscience of an artist worthy of the name is like an incurable disease which causes him endless torment but occasionally fills him with silent joy... View quote
Georges Rouault
An artist is he for whom the goal and center of life is to form his mind. View quote
Friedrich Schlegel
We live in an age where the artist is forgotten. He is a researcher. I see myself that way. View quote
David Hockney
The most valiant thing you can do as an artist is inspire someone else to be creative. View quote
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
He is the greatest artist who has embodied, in the sum of his works, the greatest number of the greatest ideas. (John Ruskin)
I talk about the gods, I am an atheist. But I am an artist too, and therefore a liar. Distrust everything I say. I am telling the truth. View quote
Ursula K. Le Guin
Art is only a means to life, to the life more abundant. It is not in itself the life more abundant. It merely points the way, something which is overlooked not only by the public, but very often by the artist himself. In becoming an end it defeats itself. View quote
Henry Miller
Every art expression is rooted fundamentally in the personality and temperament of the artist. View quote
Hans Hofmann
Every grain of experience is food for the greedy growing soul of the artist. View quote
Anthony Burgess
As for an authentic villain, the real thing, the absolute, the artist, one rarely meets him even once in a lifetime. The ordinary bad hat is always in part a decent fellow. View quote
Colette
Everyone loathes his own country and countrymen if he is any sort of artist. View quote
Lawrence Durrell
No doubt the artist is the child of his time; but woe to him if he is also its disciple, or even its favorite. View quote
Friedrich Schiller
Every artist makes himself born. It is very much harder than the other time, and longer. View quote
Willa Cather
Bullfighting is the only art in which the artist is in danger of death and in which the degree of brilliance in the performance is left to the fighter's honor. View quote
Ernest Hemingway
Any authentic work of art must start an argument between the artist and his audience. (Rebecca West)
A successful artist of any kind has to work so hard that she is justified in refusing to lay down her sceptre until she is placed on the bier. View quote
Edith Evans
An artist may visit a museum, but only a pedant can live there. View quote
George Santayana
I passionately hate the idea of being with it; I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time. View quote
Orson Welles
I've always enjoyed feeling a connection to the avant-garde, such as Dada and surrealism and pop art. The only thing the artist can do is be honest with themselves and make the art they want to make. That's what I've always done. View quote
Jeff Koons