Good Artist Quotes

• A Good artist has less time than ideas.

  Martin Kippenberger

  Art, Ideas, Artist

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• The chief enemy of creativity is 'good' sense.

  Pablo Picasso

  Life, Motivational, Beautiful

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• Every good painter paints what he is.

  Jackson Pollock

  Art, Paint, Artist

  Jackson Pollock, Bernice Rose, Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.) (1980). “Jackson Pollock, drawing into painting”, Icon

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• To be an artist you have to give up everything, including the desire to be a good artist.

  Jasper Johns

  Inspirational, Life, Beautiful

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• Good artists copy, great artists steal.

  Pablo Picasso

  Creativity, Artist, Small Jobs

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• Bad artists copy. Good artists steal.

  Pablo Picasso

  Art, Creative, Stealing

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• Picasso had a saying - 'good artists copy, great artists steal' - and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.

  Walter Isaacson

  Inspirational, Artist, Small Jobs

  Walter Isaacson (2011). “Walter Isaacson Great Innovators e-book boxed set: Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, Einstein”, p.147, Simon and Schuster

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• A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest.

  T. S. Eliot

  Artist, Immature, Aliens

  T. S. Eliot (1998). “The Sacred Wood and Major Early Essays”, p.72, Courier Corporation

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• We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.

  Steve Jobs

  Ideas, Best Job, Small Jobs

  "Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires". PBS Documentary, 1996.

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  Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.

  Andy Warhol

  Art, Hate, Creativity

  Christopher Makos, Andy Warhol (2003). “Warhol Memoir”

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• The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion.

  T. S. Eliot

  Unique, Feelings, Immature

  "Essays on Elizabethan Drama".

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• Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.

  T. S. Eliot

  Stealing Things, Immature, Different

  1920 The Sacred Wood,'Philip Massinger'.

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• One of the surest tests of the superiority or inferiority of a poet is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate mature poets steal bad poets deface what they take and good poets make it into something better or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique utterly different than that from which it is torn the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time or alien in language or diverse in interest.

  T. S. Eliot

  Art, Unique, Stealing Things

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• An artist is someone who produces things that people don't need to have but that he - for some reason - thinks it would be a good idea to give them.

  Andy Warhol

  Art, Business, Thinking

  Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again) (1975) ch. 10

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• Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.

  Edgar Degas

  Art, Knowledge, Doe

  "Artists on Art: From the XIV to the XX Century". Book edited by Robert Goldwater, 1945.

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• Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.

  T. S. Eliot

  Art, Writing, Reading Poetry

  The Sacred Wood "Philip Massinger" (1920)

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• Let the writer take up surgery or bricklaying if he is interested in technique. There is no mechanical way to get the writing done, no shortcut. The young writer would be a fool to follow a theory. Teach yourself by your own mistakes; people learn only by error. The good artist believes that nobody is good enough to give him advice. He has supreme vanity. No matter how much he admires the old writer, he wants to beat him.

  William Faulkner

  Mistake, Believe, Writing

  "William Faulkner, The Art of Fiction No. 12". Interview with Jean Stein, www.theparisreview.org. 1956.

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• 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

  Book, Writing, Artist

  Oscar Wilde (2015). “Oscar Wilde The Dover Reader”, p.48, Courier Dover Publications

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• Bad artists ignore the darkness of human existence. Good artists often get stuck there. Great artists embrace the full catastrophe of our condition and find beyond it an even deeper truth of peace, healing, and redemption.

  Martha Beck

  Healing, Artist, Darkness

  Martha Beck (2012). “Finding Your Way In A Wild New World: Four steps to fulfilling your true calling”, p.150, Hachette UK

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• Being an artist doesn't mean that you're a good artist. That was the bargain I first made with myself: I'd say, I'm an artist, but I'm not really very good.

  Paul Simon

  Art, Mean, Firsts

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• It's hard for new directors to find good tracks because we don't usually get to choose good music by good artists. I honestly think music videos will slowly die out. There will always be a few directors who do cool things. But look how many great videos there were in the '90s, and then look at the 2000s. It's depressing.

  Romain Gavras

  Depressing, Thinking, Artist

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• When I propose a candidate for a job I don't do it because the person in question is the best but because he is the one the client will employ. I provide them with a head that is good enough, placed on a body they want. [...] The world is full of people who pay serious money for bad pictures by good artists. And mediocre heads on tall bodies.

  Jo Nesbo

  Jobs, Artist, People

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• I don't want to compare myself to Picasso, but he had four or five periods in his life. Any good artist grows and changes and matures.

  Tucker Max

  Artist, Four, Want

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• Good artists exist in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are.

  Dave Eggers

  Artist

  Dave Eggers (2014). “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius: Picador Classic”, p.168, Pan Macmillan

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• Make copies, young man, many copies. You can only become a good artist by copying the masters.

  Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

  Art, Men, Copying

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