Performing Artist Quotes

San Francisco has long been a leader in the arts, nurturing generations of painters, sculptors, poets, novelists, playwrights, film-makers, and performing artists and innovators of every kind. ~ Gavin Newsom

I could draw ideas. I remember writing a paper for a seminar class. I remember writing a paper about - and this is going to sound really sort of pretentious, but that's where my mind was at the time - how acting and the performing artist can really be like a Bodhisattva, how they can communicate ultimately an idea in a way that can move and shift things. And that was wonderful. I didn't know many classes where I could try and relate the thing that I really loved and wanted to do into an intellectual idea, and that happened to be one of them. ~ Jake Gyllenhaal

The main difference between the art of the actor and all other arts is that every other [non-performing] artist may create whenever he is in the mood of inspiration. But the artist of the stage must be the master of his own inspiration, and must know how to call it forth at the hour announced on the posters of the theatre. This is the chief secret of our art. ~ Constantin Stanislavski

Believe it or not, most people think of me as a recording artist, but actually the way I think of myself and the way I earn my living is as a performing artist. ~ Helen Reddy

I am a performing artist; I perform admiration.
'Come with me', I want my poems to say. 'And do the same ~ Mary Oliver

A professional entertainer who allows himself to become known as a singer of folk songs is bound to have trouble with his conscience provided, of course, that he possesses one. As a performing artist, he will pride himself on timing and other techniques designed to keep the audience in his control [ ... ] his respect for genuine folklore reminds him that these changes, and these techniques, may give the audience a false picture of folk music. ~ Sam Hinton

The only TV I would be interested in exploring would be live television. There's no substitute for a team of artists performing at their peak live when failure is possible. It's a high-wire act. That excites me. ~ Francis Ford Coppola

I include myself in the posters because I feel like it forms a more intimate relationship between the artist and the person passing by. And it's important to include some vulnerability and use fears and rejections and various aspects from my own life so people look at my work as more than greeting card fodder. ~ Morley

An artist, in my experience, is a man or woman of unusual talent and peculiar, highly individual sensibility, with an independent and probably contrary mind, driven by mysterious passions for which another word is neurosis. In getting from point A to point B, the neurotic goes via point Q. It's in that roundabout that people are either completely crippled and hopeless in life, or highly creative. ~ Peter Schjeldahl

People abuse their own friends and family, but it is only after performing many meritorious acts that one gets a human birth. ~ Sathya Sai Baba

Beyonce is such a visual artist. This was just trying to figure out another side to her that could be fun and young and exciteful and a great video. ~ Bryce Wilson

I think an artist is anybody who does something well, like if you cook well. ~ Andy Warhol

It was the end for me. And yet not an end. In all the years which have since elapsed she remains the woman I loved and lost, the unattainable one [ ... ] I see myself forever and ever as the ridiculous man, the lonely soul, the wanderer, the restless frustrated artist, the man in love with love, always in search of the absolute, always seeking the unattainable.
- Henry Miller, Stand Still like the Hummingbird (1962) ~ Henry Miller

There are many self-proclaimed "screenwriting gurus" - though how you get to be a "guru" of something you've never actually done is beyond us. Screenplays are like blueprints. A guy who's drawn up a lot of blueprints that have never actually been made into buildings is not an "architecture guru," he's an "unemployed douchebag." A guy who talks about screen-writing but who's never sold a screenplay is not a "screenwriting guru," he's a "lecture circuit bullshit artist." From now on, that's what we'll call them. ~ Thomas Lennon

Few people know that I am also an artist; I truly enjoy sketching and drawing. ~ Sonakshi Sinha

The virtue of the camera is not the power it has to transform the photographer into an artist, but the impulse it gives him to keep on looking. ~ Brooks Atkinson

Ordinary persons, he said, smiling, found no differences between men. The artist found them all. ~ Alexander Theroux

Nature is simply the opportunity for the artist to express himself. ~ Gustave Moreau

The moral life of man forms part of the subject matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium. ~ Oscar Wilde

Your authority extends only to the performance of action; obtaining or not obtaining the fruit is never within your control; therefore, do not be one who performs action with a motive that a specific fruit should be obtained; nor insist on not-performing action. ~ William Milcetich

Art postulates communion, and the artist has an imperative need to make others share the joy which he experiences himself. ~ Igor Stravinsky

It is hard to describe the thrill of creative joy which the artist feels when the conviction seizes her that at last she has caught the very soul of the character she wishes to portray, in the music and action which reveal it. ~ Maria Jeritza

The writing of novels is one of the few ways I have found to approach the altar of God and Creation itself. You try to worship God by performing the singularly courageous and impossible favor of knowing yourself. ~ Pat Conroy

I feel people are seeing me as a true artist rather than a singer, or an entertainer, or a girl who just makes songs. ~ Alessia Cara

The original 'Artist's Way' focused on the nurturing of the self. The 'Artist's Way for Parents' focuses both on nurturing the self and nurturing the children in our care. ~ Julia Cameron

It always felt like you were trying too hard to look like the audience or something. That whole thing about the artistic integrity, which, of course, I've never bought into - with any artist. It's just not a real thing. ~ David Bowie

It's very true that an artist who networks well will have better opportunities than one who doesn't network well. But great networking skills without great art won't change art history. ~ Mark Kostabi

Can that make any sense - a Belgian artist living in Mexico and working in Afghanistan? ~ Francis Alys

His fame as an artist requires very tender care. Look what a mask of diplomacy is painstakingly formed by the whole of that fine profile; he is as wily as a cardinal. He has scented in Miss White a useful agent of celebrity, and he has come solely to harness her to the cause of his glory. It is himself that he courts by means of the salaams he offers to her; he only ever flirts with himself. He is the Narcissus of the inkpot ... ~ Jean Lorrain

One of the things you have to be able to do, as a comic strip artist, is to draw things repeatedly from a variety of angles, so you need references, and you find the best picture you can. ~ Dave Gibbons

I'll just let my work speak for itself, as every artist should. ~ Ryan Braun

When I'm not performing? I'm looking for the next big thing. ~ Ashanti

I don't believe in censorship, but I do believe that an artist has to take some moral responsibility for what he or she is putting out there. ~ Tom Petty

Now that I know what I want, I don't have to hold on to it quite so much. ~ Lucian Freud

If there is any reason to single out artists as being more necessary to our lives than any others, it is because they provide us with light that cannot be extinguished. They go into dark rooms and poke at their souls until the contours of our own are familiar to us. ~ Phyllis Grissim-Theroux

As an artist, I feel so fortunate to be able to learn from all these great musicians that came before me, when some people have nobody that came before them. ~ Kiesza

The early firings contained many stones. ~ Andy Goldsworthy

I think nearly every artist continually wants to reach the edge of nothingness - the point where you can't go any further. ~ Harry Callahan

The feeble-minded, the neurotic, the criminal, perhaps, also, the artist, have unpredictability and perverted innocence in common. ~ Truman Capote

It took me some years to clear my head of what Paris wanted me to admire about it, and to notice what I preferred instead. Not power-ridden monuments, but individual buildings which tell a quieter story: the artist's studio, or the Belle Epoque house built by a forgotten financier for a just-remembered courtesan. ~ Julian Barnes

There ought to be an artistic depot where the artist need only hand in his artwork in order to receive what he asks for. As things are, one must be half a business man, and how can one understand - good heavens! - that's what I really call troublesome. ~ Ludwig Van Beethoven

I am not Lyme disease, that's not who I am, I'm still a feminist artist, but this is a part of my story too, and I'm not going to keep it out to look cooler. ~ Kathleen Hanna

For something to become a work of art, a labeling process must take place that requires three participants: an artist who produces an apt object, a client or public, and a critic or connoisseur who mediates between the artist and the public to assure them of the artness of the thing. If I make a painting, it is not sufficient for the painting to be "art" that I consider it so, nor even that you, my friend and neighbor, admire it and hang it on your wall; it must be certified as art by competent authority and exhibited in the institutionally appropriate place, a gallery or museum. ~ Wyatt MacGaffey

The artist creates his own elite, and the elite its own artists. ~ E.H. Gombrich

As he looked,she did the same.So far she'd always seen him partially clothed,but now...The top part of one arm was a complete sleeve of interwoven Celtic designs that were so beautiful and intricate she could only imagine how long it had taken the artist to tattoo them.On his lower forearm was a Celtic cross with a circle around it and what looked like names scripted parallel to the circle.She'd noticed part of it before but hadn't wanted to stare at him.Now she was looking her fill.On his other upper arm he had the Marine Corps eagle,globe and anchor. ~ Katie Reus

The artist in his calling of interpreter creates because he must. He is so much of a voice that, for him, silence is like death ~ Joseph Conrad

An artist carries on throughout his life a mysterious, uninterrupted conversation with his public. ~ Maurice Chevalier

To a large degree, we are still bound to the modern scientific spirit, that characterizes reality merely by its material and mechanic aspects, without including life, consciousness and the intimate communion with that which poets, musicians and artists bring us in their magnificent works. ~ Leonardo Boff

Art critic! Is that a profession? When I think we are stupid enough, we painters, to solicit those people's compliments and to put ourselves into their hands! What shame! Should we even accept that they talk about our work? ~ Edgar Degas

When I was looking at the Russian Constructivists, these agitprop artists actually painted on trains. It was a heavy influence. They were bringing art to the people, to the masses, and breaking it out of the clubbiness of the art world, which is a monolith. ~ Jeffrey Deitch

I think the condition of imperial denial is a handicap because if you do not recognize that you are essentially performing the functions of an empire, you are incapable of learning from the mistakes of past empires. ~ Niall Ferguson

There is no greatness without passion to be great, whether it's the aspiration of an athlete or an artist, a scientist, a parent, or a businessperson. ~ Tony Robbins