Sadness is a very interesting idea this idea of sadness being some kind of default setting that artists will go into. And then I started thinking about this idea of sadness and happiness and the idea that sadness is very loud and happiness is quiet.
The pop musicians often leave meaning in the dust and substitute it for cartoons. The deeper artists - the grunge artists in the world and the emoticon people - tend to leave all of the happiness out of life like it just doesn't exist.
The mindset of chasing that next #1 record doesn't exist for me anymore. It's more about being a well-rounded entertainer than being a pop artist. Obviously it would be wonderful to have a hit record but I don't base my happiness on that anymore. It's about the accomplishment of a project that satisfies me. I just want to enjoy the ride.
Nobody I think ought to read poetry or look at pictures or statues who cannot find a great deal more in them than the poet or artist has actually expressed. Their highest merit is suggestiveness.
A great book provides escapism for me. The artistry and the creativity in a story are better than any drugs.
I am a leader. Leaders always get heat. They're always going against the grain. Jimi Hendrix got heat Bob Marley got heat Miles Davis got heat. Every great artist got heat. Heat means you're doing something right.
The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy only the artist the great artist knows how difficult it is.
Any great warrior is also a scholar and a poet and an artist.
What distinguishes a great artist from a weak one is first their sensibility and tenderness second their imagination and third their industry.
The man who throws a bomb is an artist because he prefers a great moment to everything.
The difference between a bad artist and a good one is: the bad artist seems to copy a great deal the good one really does.
A great artist is a great man in a great child.
I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.
As an artist I have an even more abiding interest in the compact between the Arts and Government.
A good artist should be isolated. If he isn't isolated something is wrong.
That terrible mood of depression of whether it's any good or not is what is known as The Artist's Reward.
Good artists copy great artists steal.