Artists Life Quotes

It's plain to see that the romance has slightly slipped from the Bohemian lifestyle. But we're literary Gypsies, all of us, and it's only recently that we're starting to realise we're not alone. The Internet is connecting all the healers and storytellers, the wild people and mystics, the writers and painters, and the ones who are slightly cracked.

I've always loved wild people. ~ Karl Wiggins

The observation of nature is part of an artist's life, it enlarges his form [and] knowledge, keeps him fresh and from working only by formula, and feeds inspiration. ~ Henry Moore

Art turned out to be an extremely happy accident. ~ Efrat Cybulkiewicz

It makes my makeup artist's life easier. [Plus] it makes my eyes look a little more open on TV, which is where I happen to work right now. ~ Kelly Ripa

I don't really have a gimmick or a 'thing.' I'm one of the few artists who gets to be himself every day. ~ Drake

My time in Weimar Berlin was the most elegant in my life. I would have parties for a hundred people - writers, scientists, artists. ~ Eva Zeisel

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

Remember that an artist's life is an intense search for truth. This search takes many forms. Everyone of these forms demands its own disciplines. I learned and adapted to my search. I expect nothing from you. Question the truth of anything you confront. How does it apply to yourself and the trail you are pursuing? ~ Brice Marden

A writer's heart, a poet's heart, an artist's heart, a musician's heart is always breaking. It is through that broken window that we see the world ... ~ Alice Walker

I desire to establish a profound state of peacefulness, an imperturbable stillness of mind, an unconditioned mode of being that is free from mind contaminants of negative thoughts. I pray to undertake a productive emotional, intellectual, and spiritual journey seeking the highest level of personal realization that defines wholeness and finality. In stillness, a state of mental quietude, we enter the worldly womb of creativity. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

The painter folded back the heavy curtain, standing in the stream of light breaking through the damp thickness of the room. He paused, still holding the drape in his hand as he considered with suspicion that a world could exist outside the window. ~ Thomas Lloyd Qualls

It is sometimes said that the tragedy of an artist's life is that he cannot realize his ideal. But the true tragedy that dogs the steps of most artists is that they realize their ideal too absolutely. For, when the ideal is realized, it is robbed of its wonder and its mystery, and becomes simply a new starting point for an ideal that is other than itself. This is why music is the perfect type of art. Music can never reveal its ultimate secret. ~ Oscar Wilde

The naturalness of life ... the sense of community is, I think, a very important factor in an artist's life. ~ Barbara Hepworth

Be an artist, in whatever little faculty possible.
For the Earth, without 'Art' is just 'Eh ~ Jasleen Kaur Gumber

When people say that nothing happens in their lives I believe them. But you must understand that everything happens to an artist; time is always redeemed, nothing is lost and wonders never cease. ~ Muriel Spark

Suppressing your capabilities with your fixed beliefs is a form of artistic suicide. ~ Neeraj Agnihotri

The way of an artist is an entirely different way. It is a way of surrender. ~ Agnes Martin

You know how creative people are, we have to try everything until we find our niche. ~ E.A. Bucchianeri

The painter knew that color was not something you controlled but something you set free. He believed that color knew its way home. ~ Thomas Lloyd Qualls

What attracted me was less art itself than the artist's life and all that it meant for me: the idea of creativity and freedom of expression and action. I had been attracted to painting and drawing for a long time, but it was not an irresistible passion; what I wanted, at all costs, was to escape the monotony of life. ~ Pierre Bonnard

The art wouldn't complain if we leave her alone. Losing a touch with art, however, is losing a touch with our imagination. ~ Pawan Mishra

Taffy bounds up to him and gives him a sloppy, drunken hug. "Oh my God, I knew your art would be awesome!" she gushes.
Bitch. How dare she intrude on our private moment! ~ Kitsy Clare

Artistes are true muses of each other! ~ Avijeet Das

Fame is not the same as success, and in our true souls we know that. ~ Julia Cameron

In my experience, what every true artist wants, really wants, is to be paid. ~ Terry Pratchett

For a great artist, life is about searching for something that gives you an insatiable craving to go further and beyond. ~ Talismanist Giebra

In every artist's life, there comes a person who lifts the
curtain on creativity. It is the closest you come to seeing
me again.
The first time, when you emerge from the womb, I am a
brilliant color in the rainbow of human talents from which
you choose. Later, when a special someone lifts the curtain,
you feel that chosen talent stirring inside you, a bursting
passion to sing, paint, dance, bang on drums. And you are never the same. ~ Mitch Albom

Leaning over the bright display among the back aisles of a forbidden arcade, rows of other players silent, unnoticed, closing time never announced, playing for nothing but the score itself, the row of numbers, a chance of entering her initials among those of other strangers for a brief time, no longer the time the world observed but game time, underground time, time that could take her nowhere outside its own tight and falsely deathless perimeter. ~ Thomas Pynchon

What if your art could provide everything you ever needed or wanted in life? ~ Patti Digh

I have a tendency to break rules and shake things up. I would say that with me people never know what is real and what is fiction. And I like that because reality is relative. ~ Nuno Roque

Every work of art is aggressive, Isabella. And every artist's life is a small war or a large one, beginning with oneself and one's limitations. To achieve anything you must first have ambition and then talent, knowledge, and finally the opportunity. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zafon

You cannot define good or bad in art. It's all about the way you look at things around you", I replied. ~ Deepak Ranjan

Why is joy not considered a fit subject for an artist? ~ Eugene Manlove Rhodes

That life has no clear purpose or meaning is the best possible news for artists. ~ Marty Rubin

I said earlier that I do not believe an artist's life throws much light upon his works. I do believe, however, that, more often than most people realize, his works may throw light upon his life. An artist with certain imaginative ideas in his head may then involve himself in relationships which are congenial to them. ~ W. H. Auden

At the core of everything I do, is not my ambition but my desire to make music. Somewhere along the line I stumbled onto something that was bigger, different than anything I had ever imagined, which was actually being involved with other people. I just don't live the average artist's life. ~ El-P

In an artist's life, death is perhaps not the most difficult thing. ~ Vincent Van Gogh

I quit smoking in December. I'm really depressed about it. I love smoking, I love fire, I miss lighting cigarettes. I like the whole thing about it, to me it turns into the artist's life, and now people like Bloomberg have made animals out of smokers, and they think that if they stop smoking everyone will live forever. ~ David Lynch

The idea of a talent that was bigger than an artist's ability to choose to use it, that would dictate the artist's life more than the artist could dictate, was interesting to me. ~ Alexander Chee

It's the artist's duty to have an artist's life, somehow to obtain time and freedom and then to muster the desire and discipline to make good work out of the life, whether that goodness is in the world's aesthetics, its radicalism, its candor, its singularity, or its universality. ~ Stephanie Mills

We can either own our circumstances and be creative in them, or we can throw up our hands and say, I cannot be held accountable because the conditions are not ideal. ~ Patti Digh

Fear doesn't go away. The warrior and the artist live by the same code of necessity, which dictates that the battle must be fought anew every day. ~ Steven Pressfield

Music is my number one, it's my life, it's my everything. I'm enjoying challenging myself; I want to raise the bar and set a new standard for Australian pop artists. ~ Ricki-Lee Coulter

I am an artist, and I am a piece of art. ~ Talismanist Giebra

Observe yourself as you start to drift toward the internet, searching for confirmation that you suck, and then use that impetus as a signal to instead turn off your phone or internet connection and be messy in your art for an hour without the intention of making anything in particular. ~ Beth Pickens

There is an appalling amount of mechanical work in the artist's life ... Talent is mysterious, but the qualities that guard, foster, and direct it are not unlike those of a good quartermaster. ~ Anne Truitt

Since I was a kid, music has been a huge part of my life. My parents had a pretty solid vinyl collection and exposed me to some amazing artists. ~ Reid Scott

Venice, it's temples and palaces did seem like fabrics of enchantment piled to heaven. ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

When your heart jumps every time your camera locks focus...You've become a photographer. ~ Mark Denman

We are all born artists. The nature generally doesn't discriminate among newborns with respect to art. Yet most of us try very hard as we grow, without knowing, to stop being artists. ~ Pawan Mishra

A true artist is never satisfied with settling, so you will never see them stay the same for very long. They are like chameleons... ever-changing, ever-scheming, ever-chasing that glimpse of divine inspiration that creates them anew. ~ Sarah Loven

I can create my imagination because i am an Artist.! ~ Manish Suthar

The greatest artists express their inner self; an artist paints her rage; a writer pens his fear; a dancer expresses her sadness through movement; and a musician's loneliness echoes in his performance. ~ Gerard De Marigny

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

I'm like a circus standing on two legs. ~ Nuno Roque

As an artist I have always tried to be faithful to my vision of life, and I have frequently been in conflict with those who wanted me to paint not what I saw but what they wished me to see. ~ Diego Rivera

I am an artist. Any artist knows that their creations, their pieces must express an array of human emotion and experience. From the juvenile and innocent, to the erotic and the dangerous, and everything in between. Because Life is all of these things and more. It is the artist's divine purpose to reflect what Experience has shown them and others. What truly sets us apart from each other is whether or not we truly know ourselves enough to reflect objectively; but, through our own unique 'voice'. ~ Solange Nicole

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

The artist's life cannot be otherwise than full of conflicts, for two forces are at war within him; on the one hand, the common human longing for happiness, satisfaction and security in life and on the other, a ruthless passion for creation which may go so far as to override every personal desire ... there are hardly any exceptions to the rule that a person must pay dearly for the divine gift of creative fire. ~ C. G. Jung

i Create. I don't "Need".
Meaning: I don't need advice or criticism.
Unless you're offering money, weed, or whiskey save it. Thanks. ~ Jonathan Heatt

Feedback doesn't tell you about yourself. It tells you about the person giving the feedback. In other words, if someone says your work is gorgeous, that just tells you about *their* taste. If you put out a new product and it doesn't sell at all, that tells you something about what your audience does and doesn't want. When we look at praise and criticism as information about the people giving it, we tend to get really curious about the feedback, rather than dejected or defensive. ~ Tara Mohr

Artists are haunted souls. ~ Wayne Gerard Trotman

Why is it every other person you meet says they're an artist? A real artist doesn't need to gas on about it, he doesn't have time. He does his work and sweats it out in silence, and no one can help him at all. ~ Paula McLain

Fueled by my inspiration, I ran across the room to steal the cup of coffee the bookshelf had taken prisoner. Lapping the black watery brew like a hyena, I tossed the empty cup aside. I then returned to the chair to continue my divine act of creation. Hot blood swished in my head as my mighty pen stole across the page. ~ Roman Payne

Dear brother,
I feel what Pa and Ma instinctively think about me (I don't say reasonably).
There's a similar reluctance about taking me into the house as there would be about having a large, shaggy dog in the house. He'll come into the room with wet paws - and then, he's so shaggy. He'll get in everyone's way. And he barks so loudly.
In short - it's a dirty animal.
Very well - but the animal has a human history and, although it's a dog, a human soul, and one with finer feelings at that, able to feel what people think about him, which an ordinary dog can't do.
And I, admitting that I am a sort of dog, accept them as they are.
Vincent van Gogh to his brother Theo, Nuenen, 15 December 1883 ~ Vincent Van Gogh

There comes a moment in a young artist's life when he knows he has to bring something to the stage from within himself. He has to put in something in order to be able to take something. ~ Mikhail Baryshnikov

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

Do you know why our poetry today and especially our philosophy are such dead issues? Because they've cut themselves off from life. Now, Greece idealized on life's own level: an artist's life was already a poetic achievement; a philosopher's life was an enactment of his philosophy; and when they were a part of life that way, instead of ignoring each other, philosophy could nourish poetry, poetry express philosophy, and together achieve an admirable persuasiveness. Today beauty no longer acts; and action no longer bothers about being beautiful; and wisdom operates on the sidelines. ~ Andre Gide

We all tell our own stories the way we live our lives. My story is: Life is too short to not believe in fresh voices. I don't have Hollywood stars. I have great American artists. ~ Kevin McCollum

The soul of an artist cannot be muted indefinitely. It must either be expressed or it will consume the host. ~ Gerard De Marigny

I do not feel that artists have to spend hours a day to keep their technic efficient. If that were the case one would not be in a position to participate in the other joys of life. Nor could he enrich his art. Of course, mind you I am not saying that one should not work. But definitely I say that if one has developed a firm technic, it is not necessary to slave over the instrument for the rest of his life in order to keep in good form. ~ Gregor Piatagorsky

Frida Kahlo had found her passion in colour, she painted with intensity and she cherished her loves with every ounce of her bones. She stood up for things of importance, and she never ever apologised for who she was ~ Karl Wiggins

I couldn't decide whether it was better to be the art, or the artist. ~ Chris Campanioni

You will struggle. You will fall down. You will be hated. You will face many defeats. You will be mocked. You will be alone. The world will not give you recognition. The world will not give you, your due. Against all odds, if you still persist and create your art, it will be a victory! It will be your victory. Finally, you would win. ~ Avijeet Das

Creating any type of art is an actual experience inasmuch as it affects the artist's life. The experience of writing not only merges disparate parts of the mind, this expressive experience affects the evolution of the self. Writing is not about the process of creating a piece of literature; rather, writing is an artistic, transformative experience. All opposite forces in human nature are reconciled in the unity of consciousness, which is why the most fully developed human being strives to makes their unconsciousness thoughts, feelings, and prejudices conscious through acts of contemplation. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Love is the spirit that motivates the artist's journey. The love may sublime, raw, obsessive, passionate, awful. or thrilling, but whatever its quality, it's a powerful motive in the artist's life. ~ Eric Maisel

Since you are chosen by the Muse, your mind is always pregnant with an unstable roller-coaster of the creative itches. The utopian conjectures and hypotheses of perfect romance, fondles the fairyland.. It is like having the higher educational qualification than the eligibility criteria, either you choose to be jobless or you have to compromise and adjust with low salary, low designation and sometimes, you have to start from the cipher who eventually turns out to be a numbskull dick!
Reason, why the crème de la crème sapiosexuals are slaugherous, cynical, sweetly sardonic, spouseless, and of course allergic to baloney and bullshits.. ~ Himmilicious

In retrospect, I think those people dressed in costumes walking up Montparnasse must have seen someting before anybody else did. When they looked at me and said, "This guy comes with us," I think it wasn't just an accident, it was as clear a sign as I would ever get that I was going to enter the life of the artist. I was going to disrobe myself, I was going to put on a new identity, I was going to be somebody else. ~ Philip Glass

Great artists have wild and untamed reality. ~ Talismanist Giebra

You've always lived a life of pretense, not a real life
a simulated existence, not a genuine existence. Everything about you, everything you are, has always been pretense, never genuine, never real. ~ Thomas Bernhard

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

To be a writer and political is a dangerous thing. To be a writer and apolitical is even more dangerous. Art is right, left; in truth, it has only one direction and that is forward. ~ Chris Campanioni

What artist has not experienced the feverish euphoria of composing the perfect thumbnail sketch, first draft, negative or melody - only to run headlong into a stone wall trying to convert that tantalizing hint into the finished mural, novel, photograph, sonata. The artist's life is frustrating not because the passage is slow, but because he imagines it to be fast. ~ David Bayles

The Mountain

My students look at me expectantly.
I explain to them that the life of art is a life
of endless labor. Their expressions
hardly change; they need to know
a little more about endless labor.
So I tell them the story of Sisyphus,
how he was doomed to push
a rock up a mountain, knowing nothing
would come of this effort
but that he would repeat it
indefinitely. I tell them
there is joy in this, in the artist's life,
that one eludes
judgment, and as I speak
I am secretly pushing a rock myself,
slyly pushing it up the steep
face of a mountain. Why do I lie
to these children? They aren't listening,
they aren't deceived, their fingers
tapping at the wooden desks -
So I retract
the myth; I tell them it occurs
in hell, and that the artist lies
because he is obsessed with attainment,
that he perceives the summit
as that place where he will live forever,
a place about to be
transformed by his burden: with every breath,
I am standing at the top of the mountain.
Both my hands are free. And the rock has added
height to the mountain. ~ Louise Gluck

Music is art, art is life, and we are who we are, and all of these aforementioned women, unless they should choose not to, will be performing well into the next many decades because they are great artists. ~ Lara St. John

The only artists I have ever known who are personally delightful are bad artists. Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are. A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating. The worse their rhymes are, the more picturesque they look. The mere fact of having published a book of second-rate sonnets makes a man quite irresistible. He lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realize. ~ Oscar Wilde

Do you know the reason why poetry and philosophy are nothing but dead-letter nowadays? It is because they have severed themselves from life. In Greece, ideas went hand-in-hand with life; so that the artist's life was already a poetic realisation, the philosopher's life a putting into action of his philosophy; in this way, as both philosophy and poetry took part in life, instead of remaining unacquainted with each other, philosophy provided food for poetry, and poetry gave expression to philosophy - and the result was admirably persuasive. Nowadays beauty no longer acts; action no longer desires to be beautiful; and wisdom works in a sphere apart. ~ Andre Gide

We are the young and reckless hearts,
destined to fly, and fall, and fly again.
The world doesn't treat the wild souls well,
because maybe it doesn't quite understand.
But in the end it remembers the super novas
that burned so bright we blinded them all. ~ Sarah Loven

Like many people who dress in black, the lump of coal was interested in becoming an artist. ~ Lemony Snicket

There is one myth about writers that I have always felt was particularly pernicious and untruthful - the myth of the "lonely writer," the myth that writing is a lonely occupation, involving much suffering because, supposedly, the writer exists in a state of sensitivity which cuts him off, or raises him above, or casts him below the community around him. This is a common cliché, a hangover probably from the romantic period and the idea of the artist as a Sufferer and a Rebel.

Probably any of the arts that are not performed in a chorus-line are going to come in for a certain amount of romanticizing, but it seems to me particularly bad to do this to writers and especially fiction writers, because fiction writers engage in the homeliest, and most concrete, and most unromanticizable of all arts. I suppose there have been enough genuinely lonely suffering novelists to make this seem a reasonable myth, but there is every reason to suppose that such cases are the result of less admirable qualities in these writers, qualities which have nothing to do with the vocation of writing itself. ~ Flannery O'Connor

Up on the Brooklyn Bridge a man is standing in agony, waiting to jump, or waiting to write a poem, or waiting for the blood to leave his vessels because if he advances another foot the pain of his love will kill him. ~ Henry Miller

It's my selfish desire to be inspired by you. Artistes are the muses of each other. ~ Avijeet Das

To lead a life of meaning and purpose, the artist must lead a life of struggle. ~ Avijeet Das

The artist's life nourishes itself on the particular, the concrete. ~ Sylvia Plath

The canvas is the door to another dimension. The paintbrush is the key. ~ Luhraw

They say that art comes from the soul. The more drama in an artist's life, the more he can draw on for his art. Van Gogh and Picasso had troubled souls, but poor Steve Kaufman has been shot once, stabbed 3 times - all by women. That is a lot of drama for great art. ~ Robin Leach

An artist's life is supposed to lead toward his masterpiece, not away from it. ~ John Thomas Sladek

Do you know what I have been involuntarily thinking, that in the first period of an artist's life, one unconsciously makes it very hard for oneself – by a feeling of not being able to master the work – by an uncertainty as to whether one will ever master it – by a great ambition to make progress, but a lack of self-confidence – one cannot banish a certain feeling of agitation, and one hurries oneself though one doesn't like to be hurried . . .
This cannot be helped, and it is a time which one must go through, and which in my opinion cannot and should not be otherwise. ~ Vincent Van Gogh

Judging your early artistic efforts is artist abuse. ~ Julia Cameron

Consider the little mouse, how sagacious an animal it is which never entrusts its life to one hole only. ~ Plautus