Quotes About Expression

It is a rare photographer who can take a detached, cold-blooded view of his work.

People work better when they are afforded to be themselves

A work of art may be understood as a conductor from the artist's mind to the viewer's. But it may never reach the viewer, or it may never leave the artist's mind.

Any creative work that is truly alive is influenced by a thousand chance factors in its generation.

If people have split views about your work, I think it's flattering. I'd rather have them feel something about it than dismiss it.

I don't separate writing songs from poetry and short fiction. In the area where I work in my house, there's a word processor and a guitar.

Most people have music in the center of their lives. I believe my work sheds light on how music affects us and why it is so influential.

I don't feel guilty about expressing myself in French; nor do I feel that I am continuing the work of the colonizers.

And, so yeah, I'll always want to work in independent films because you're not forced into a category or a formula.

To appreciate a work of art, is it okay to like what you like, and the heck with the art critics and experts? Absolutely.

It's always been great to be onstage. It's really effortless up there. It's not a lot of work.

Ideas for work are coming to me in abundance...I'm going like a painting-locomotive.

Love can't be a metaphor anymore. If you try to make literature out of it, it doesn't work.

Everything that you read is an influence on everything you write, and you want to draw as many elements into your work as you can.

Every work of art is the child of its time, often it is the mother of our emotions.

I started producing work with an ecstatic addiction.

I think writing books is a way for me to work out certain issues. I write about what matters to me, always.

Writing is an act of empathy. You are occupying and understanding a point of view that might be alien to your own--and work is often the keyhole through which you peer.

..When I first heard Elvis' voice, I knew that I wasn't going to work for anybody ... hearing him for the first time was like busting out of jail

When I go onstage, I'm going to work ...I feel like my performance is about an emotional connection. I want to connect with people, whether it's like a romantic song or a happy song.

I love being an illustrator because I get to read really great stories, work with amazing people, travel and see places I never would've seen. And I get to draw all the time.

An artist's early work is inevitably made up of a mixture of tendencies and interests, some of which are compatible and some of which are in conflict

Most of the time, the creative part is like playing in a sandbox. I can sit here and work for 12 hours and not get tired of it.

An essay is a work of literary art which has a minimum of one anecdote and one universal idea.