Best Artist Quotes to Inspire, Uplift & Motivate You Every Day

“Why do you think my name is Artist? I'm an artist.”

“You have a right to your opinion about the work that you're doing. An artist is as equally important as the director. If you believe that, you can work in any circumstances.”

“I grew as an artist and a person. I'm just ready to work, get this money, get this new fan base and tour all over the world.”

“It's getting too late in my life to care about the small things. It's getting too late to not be brave, to not live my life fully, to not try to be an artist. Trivial things like how nice your hotel room is, or if you have to be naked for a while, they fade away.”

“To me, being in the studio is one of the most exciting parts about being an artist.”

“The music began, and it was one of those life-changing moments. I saw an artist, Janis Joplin. She was exhilarating. She was vibrating. And she was like no other artist that I had ever seen before... It struck me that hard. Maybe the word is epiphany, when you get that special sensation.”

“Even last minute, you can find a great makeup artist at your local MAC store or department store makeup counter, and a lot of times they'll hook you up for free.”

“Finding your voice as a stand up comedian means deeply knowing who you are as an artist and a human being.”

“Imagine spending seven years at MIT and research laboratories, only to find out that you're a performance artist.”

“The biggest threat to any politician is an artist. Comedians unleashed can do a great deal of damage. David Letterman can do more damage than any Republican assault by Newt Gingrich.”

“As an artist, I am very proud of 'Ek Thi Daayan.' It was a supernatural flick and a huge risk, since not many films are made like that.”

“At the end of the day, if you don't have a record contract, a studio or a guitar, you can still write songs. You're still an artist. That's something no one can take away.”

“It just happens in life, where you resonate with a particular artist. Or it can be a kind of food or a fashion - you discover it and it gives you a whole new lease on life.”

“My stepfather was in the navy, so I got to know a side of Chile that is not what you would expect from an artist.”

“When I started off as an actor, the last thing I wanted to do in the world was make money. I was under the impression, when I started off as an actor, that the more money I made, the more it would diminish from my creativity and my capacity to be an artist.”

“You must be an artist and a citizen of the world. You must speak to this stuff that's happening. You must do what you can to shine a light on it, help people through it.”

“I've come to understand my role. On some level, I provide the context for them to shine. I also know my role is the steward of the songs, and the center point, the artist that the stuff all revolves around. But I really try to honor that.”

“I'm a contemporary artist and I show in art galleries and museums. I show a number of photographs and films, but I also make television programs, books and some appetizing, all with the same concept.”

“When I first started out in the music industry and went to Elektra Records, I didn't go to be an artist, I went to get a record label started. And they said in order to have a label deal, I had to be an artist - so that's what I did.”

“That was always the top martial artist - the Brazilian jiu jitsu black belt. Once I started beating them, I knew I had what it takes to form a new martial art. That's when I came up with Joe Jitsu, my namesake, so my legacy lives forever through the martial arts.”

“I'm very picky about the kind of work that I do, and I'm fortunate to have been able to work with great directors and great actors who've helped me grow as an artist.”

“For any artist, it is the biggest dream for his work to reach places.”

“In this industry, all the heads of labels are men, but every artist has to prove themselves, regardless of their sex. I have always been very vocal about the women sticking together.”

“I'm working to be a complete mixed martial artist.”

“With streaming, everything is focused on singles. That means an artist's depth doesn't have the chance to shine through.”

“I've always been a cabaret-vaudeville artist - an hourlong cabaret and a floor show in a hotel - somebody like that. That's my main forte.”

“When you break an artist, you learn a lot.”

“Yeah, I put out some goofy stuff. I had no idea who I was as an artist at all before 'Posse on Broadway.'”

“I never envisioned myself as a solo artist; I was always part of a band.”

“Social media and music in general have been changing so fast. You can go on Twitter and go from one artist to another. What I really like about it is the opportunity to communicate directly with your fans.”

“I think, probably, being a young artist, there were a lot of things I thought I knew and I wanted to do, and I was like, 'Oh! That's what I want to do.' And then it took me in a different direction with 'I Think We're Alone Now,' and then all of a sudden, I was a pop star.”

“If a new artist comes, and he doesn't have a good record label to invest in him, then there is no point.”

“My first Grammy nomination? I was 24 - I was nominated for best new artist of the year.”

“I just want to be fully challenged as an artist, so that anyone who looks like me, who relates to me, says, 'Oh, if Danielle did it, I can.'”

“It should be if you're a good singer and a good songwriter, you should have your spot. You get everybody trying to release the prettiest guy, but that doesn't mean they're the best artist. Most of the time the true artists are just normal old dudes.”

“Lawrence Ferlinghetti had a tremendous education as an artist and also an enormous knowledge of literarture.”

“I like the idea that paintings are not representations of an artist's psyche. Making the paintings is what gives the artist her psyche in the first place.”

“Though I played classical piano since age 5 and sang in a cappella groups, being an artist didn't seem like something I was talented enough to do full time. So I kind of buried that dream.”

“Nothing irritates me more than going to see an artist and paying all this money and then have them rant about very specific political opinions.”

“When a real artist creates something, it has to be a necessity, the only way he can say something.”

“I really believe that every character comes from the well of the artist.”

“I think some people have this thing where just because you do singles that means you're not a real artist. It's like hold on a minute - I'm selling millions of records here and been streamed billions of times... How can I not be taken as a real artist just because these songs are singles?”

“Being a skilled martial artist takes a lot of focus, and you know the athleticism helps because you just naturally look more believable when you're pulling off these moves.”

“I think it's important for every artist to have that ballad that stands the test of time.”

“I love all types of music. Jazz, classical, blues, rock, hip-hop. I often write scripts to instrumentals like a hip-hop artist. Music inspires me to write. It's either music playing or completely silent. Sometimes distant sound fuels you. In New York there's always a buzzing beneath you.”

“I developed 'Power: From the Mouths of the Occupied' while I was an Artist in Residence at Kalamazoo College.”

“The people, the culture... there's so much magic in Colombia, so I feel like being a kid, being able to have that, being able to also call Colombia my home, it was such an important part of my introduction as an artist, too, because it's such a big part of my life as a human being.”

“I want to make music and songs about things that real musicians and artist aren't able to make songs about - you wouldn't hear Justin Bieber making a song about homework, or, like, you wouldn't see someone make a song with their parents on the track.”

“I don't sell anything. So, I have a personal image, but I think that's because I'm from an art background, and I'm an artist, and I think most artists do have personal images. I consider myself more in that category of the way an artist had a look.”

“Actually, yeah, I am an artist. I draw.”

“The '80s and '90s were the greatest time to be a makeup artist.”

“Why do we pigeonhole and label an artist? It is a sure way of missing the important, the contradictory, the things that make him or her unique.”

“People send me songs all the time that are literally no-brainer hits... but for me, I'm an artist because I'm a writer.”

“It's all about perspective: different people need different forms of musical medicine. What matters most is if the artist or musician or DJ thoroughly, passionately, loves the music they're sharing. It's so important that it comes from a place of integrity.”

“If it's something quite low-key then I'll often do my own makeup. But for something like a premiere, it's good to have a makeup artist because they know what they're doing.”

“The big pay-off was to work as an artist and gain some shred of respect from your friends, who were also artists. But there was never any notion that you could make a living out of art. On the rare occasions you had a gallery show, and sold a little work, well, that was just gravy.”

“I wanted to start doing more music, doing more things than just playing guitar. I started taking singing lessons and piano lessons. I need to learn more things, to be an artist or whatever, and then transfer that back into writing songs.”

“I like to find an artist who inspires me and get into their world and challenge them.”

“As an artist, you're taking your experiences and placing them into your art. So the more experiences you have, the richer your art and more people can relate to it.”

“Tank is my boy. I'm the first artist he's ever been on the road with. We go all the way back to 'Pony.' He was my background singer on my tour.”

“Show me a Scorsese film, and I'll show you a movie where he's taken risks. It's just his nature. He's an artist, and artists take risks. He always does what he believes in.”

“I wouldn't be an artist if I didn't have Shania Twain, Faith Hill, Taylor Swift to look up to.”

“I want to be more than just an artist and be a people's person and do a lot of stuff for people.”

“Being promoted as a bubble-gum type artist that has one hit and it's all over is not something I want to do. I want a long career. I want to continue to play guitar and have as much guitar in there as possible in a commercial song without being too indulgent.”

“Finding my voice as an artist was not at all challenging.”

“I would love to do musicals, sitcoms and even television talk shows. I think I have the potential. But most importantly, my ultimate goal as an artist is to create a new music genre like Elvis Presley.”

“It's an artist's job to always have their antennas up.”

“I believed in myself, and I've always worked very, very hard as an artist, and I am an artist in every sense of the word.”

“As much as I love to slay a red carpet hitting the ground running with 'Beale Street' and 'Native Son,' representing two such important voices in James Baldwin and Richard Wright let people know that I'm an artist and I really have something to say with this gift.”

“I'm not just a country artist. I've got so any sides to me and the music I write.”

“I want to see where and how far I can go as an artist. I look back and see what I've done, and I want to do as much as I can in my lifetime. I love doing it. If I didn't have that passion or love for it, I wouldn't do it.”

“It is probably like an artist. They see in their head what they want to draw, and they draw it. It is like I have a feeling inside me that I want to create on a horse, and that is what I do.”

“Sometimes it feels as if the artist hasn't done the real work of engaging with the material. Film noir can't just play off looks and attitudes. A thriller needs a dose of genuine suspense. It does not have to be literal, but it does have to feel genuine. Otherwise the artist is just leeching off the form.”

“I'm a fairly tormented artist, and I'm less willing to indulge myself in self-pity, outside of songwriting.”

“Going from someone playing 15-people venues to performing at the Grammys, it was this giant leap and sort of showed me it was possible with what I wanted to do and the kind of music I wanted to write and artist I want to be to impact a lot of people.”

“I try to physically and mentally immerse myself in whatever it is I am doing. That is good for me as an artist. I am always looking for that part that I have never done before, which makes it all the more difficult, because people want to hire you for what they've already seen you do.”

“I wear glasses and suits, so I guess I am an indie artist.”

“I needed to be pushed as an artist and as a person.”

“Producing has empowered me as an artist in a specific way. It's forced a certain kind of maturity.”

“The first prerogative of an artist in any medium is to make a fool of himself.”

“I'm traditional. I'm like a samurai. I'm a martial artist. I'm a sniper. I know things about the body.”

“You see how Jay-Z has evolved from 'Reasonable Doubt' to now being Shawn Carter. You have to grow to be a superstar and not just a rap artist.”

“Madonna would not have done a 360 deal with us just because of our touring capability. We had to prove to her and others that we have been working on and built a very good execution capacity at Artist Nation.”

“I've always been a fan of Nigerian artist D'banj. He's now signed to Kanye West's Good Music label.”

“The desk thing is a problem for me. The ideal one would be vast and perfectly clear. Yet the bane of the biographical existence is paper; if you're 'an artist under oath' you're writing from a mountain of documentation.”

“The purity of finding the right artist, that artist that's gonna be the next hall of famer, that artist that's gonna be the next headliner, lifting people out of their seats at Madison Square Garden, that song that's gonna be sung for hundreds and hundreds of years, that essence remains the same.”

“I don't know what else I would do. I love entertaining people, I love communicating, I love an audience. I'm a real artist, right from the bottom of my toes to the top of my head.”

“I never thought of myself as a songwriter. I was just an artist writing songs, and they just happened to get placed.”

“I never think about myself as an artist working in this time. I think about it in macro.”

“When we released 'Chaos A.D' it was really hard for a metal artist to survive. Everything was grunge. Everywhere you looked was grunge.”

“As a solo artist, my desire is to express myself through my music.”

“It's silly to call me the new Ed Sheeran. He can fill stadiums as a solo artist, but I'm not like that.”

“If you connect with an artist because of what they make as a body of work, you feel like they're your friend. You feel like you're on the journey of connection with them because they see the world the same way you do. That's so powerful, and if you use that, you can genuinely change minds.”

“When I was a kid, I always thought that I'd be a comic book artist. It took a long time to start thinking that I could be a musician.”

“Political satire is a serious thing. In democratic newspapers throughout the world there are daily cartoons that often are not even funny, as is the case especially in many English-language newspapers. Instead, they contain a political message, and the artist takes full responsibility.”

“I think one of the things that started to hinder Baldwin as an artist later on was that he became really aware of power, so he wanted it, too. But if you look at the work before that, before 'The Fire Next Time' put him on the cover of 'Time Magazine,' it was much more intimate and a much more internal conversation.”

“A lot of us have classical and jazz training, and it would be hard for us to work with a hip-hop artist who doesn't know a lot about the technical aspects of music. But when you listen to Wyclef's records, you hear bridges, chord changes and real structure. You can tell he has big ears.”

“I see myself as a martial artist. I'm a creative fighter. It's not about hitting the guy and hurting him, it's about scoring points, with grace.”

“As always, my influences are diverse and not what you might expect from a 'heavy metal' artist.”

“When I came up, there was room for the new and the old. For every new artist, an old one didn't have to be pushed out.”