Added to the moral solitude of the murderer comes the solitude of the artist, which can acknowledge no authority, save that of another artist.

Of an artistic temperament, I deny that I am; yet I must possess something of the artist's faculty of making the most of present pleasure.

Where there is a true art and genuine virtuosity the artist can paint an incomparable masterpiece without leaving even a trace of his identity.

A creator is not in advance of his generation but he is the first of his contemporaries to be conscious of what is happening to his generation.

There is something deeply satisfying in shaping something with your hands. Proper artificing is like a song made solid. It is an act of creation.

The purpose of art is to give the traveling human race an improved map that shows the way to itself. If art isn't for *that*, what is it for?

I am the eye that beholds... And I am the dreamer that paints the stars in the night sky... For I am the one they call artist, and you call Love.

You might say “no, you will never do that, that’s not you, not who I know, not who I thought you were”, and I will say "watch me".

Writers do not have the privilege of sleep. There is always a story coming alive in their heads, constantly composing. Whether they choose it or not.

We feel that in the future, groups are going to have to offer much more than just a pop show. They'll have to offer a well-presented theatre show.

I pastiche, I quote, I lie. Fake, forge, forage, fabricate, copy, borrow, transform, steal. I illusion. I’m a genuine deceiver, a shy sham artist.

Your mind is the canvas upon which you are the artist. What will you paint on your canvas today? Will you draw a stick figure or create a masterpiece...?

Every person who is really an artist desires to create inside of himself another, deeper, more interesting life than the one that actually surrounds him.

To abstract is to draw out the essence of a matter. To abstract in art is to separate certain fundamentals from irrelevant material which surrounds them.

From the moment I held the box of colors in my hands, I knew this was my life. I threw myself into it like a beast that plunges towards the thing it loves.