I think I’ve committed the one really bad English crime, which is I’ve risen above my station. I was supposed to be a pop star, and suddenly I’m claiming that I’m an artist of some kind.

I didn’t watch ‚The A-Team‘ movie. I’m an artist. You can’t re-paint a Rembrandt. You can’t duplicate that; I don’t care who you get.

I’ve never been an intellectual but I have this look.

A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.

An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.

I think it’s important as an artist to never forget where you’re from.

An artist or a creative person of any kind goes about their work because it’s their path, it’s what excites them, it’s what aligns their soul with who they truly are, who they showed up to be.

Van Gogh never made a penny in his entire lifetime. He painted because it was his soul, his excitement. It was what aligned him with his Source of being. It’s the same with me and writing.

It seemed like a very small possibility for me to become an artist. I didn’t have the need to be on the stage; I didn’t feel the need to be heard. I just needed to write.

People still think of me as a cartoonist, but the only thing I lift a pen or pencil for these days is to sign a contract, a check, or an autograph.

Whatever role I play is a positive role; it’s a strong role. Never negative.

I even found it difficult to watch myself playing on TV because I couldn’t identify with the person on the screen. I couldn’t get to grips with it. It was as if it was all happening to someone else.

I do probably 60 concerts a year in the States. And I go out to clubs in the week. I’m doing new stuff all the time.

Some of these Ivy League kids want to have it both ways. They want to be baby members of the 1 percent, which they most certainly are, and yet still portray themselves as the oppressed.

The biggest crime in England is to rise above your station. It’s fine to be a pop star. ‚Oh, it’s great, lots of fun, aren’t they sweet, these pop stars! But to think you have anything to say about how the world should work? What arrogance!‘

‚Good English‘ is whatever educated people talk; so that what is good in one place or time would not be so in another.

What we wish, we readily believe, and what we ourselves think, we imagine others think also.

The critic has to educate the public; the artist has to educate the critic.

I want to be an artist, not… a celluloid aphrodisiac.

To be in any way a positive contribution, that’s all anybody wants to be. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to be. I wanted to be an artist, be a mother. You want to feel that in your life you’ve been of use, in whatever way that comes out.

Great art is the contempt of a great man for small art.

If you only believe that you’re an artist when you have a big advance in your pocket and a single coming out, I would say that’s quite soulless. You have to have a sense of your own greatness and your own ability from a very deep place inside you. I am the one with the litmus test in my hands of what people need to hear next.

I would never say I was an icon, but so many people have said I am, so I suppose I am. I mean, I can’t not be what everyone says I am. But I don’t feel like an icon.

Everyone calls me Bruno; they don’t ever call me Peter – that was just my government name.

The abdomen is the reason why man does not readily take himself to be a god.

I do have a vulnerable side. I think a lot of people have a misperception of me. They only see the tough, defensive, aggressive side. But every woman is vulnerable.

Thirty-three-years-old, still creating art. It’s rage, it’s creativity, it’s pain, it’s hurt, but it’s the opportunity to still have my voice get out there through music.

I was lousy in school. Real screwed-up. A moron. I was antisocial and didn’t bother with the other kids. A really bad student. I didn’t have any brains. I didn’t know what I was doing there. That’s why I became an actor.

The artist part of me always wants to be appreciated. I read every review. But I never wanted to seek validation by awards or anything controlled by politics.

That terrible mood of depression of whether it’s any good or not is what is known as The Artist’s Reward.

I kept a diary right after I was born. Day 1: Tired from the move. Day 2: Everyone thinks I’m an idiot.

The longer I am out of office, the more infallible I appear to myself.

As an artist your first loyalty is to your art. Unless this is the case, you’re going to be a second-rate artist.

I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.

Radio in England is nonexistent. It’s very bad English use of a media system, typically English use.

I never saw myself as a folk singer.

It is curious how instinctively one protects the image of oneself from idolatry or any other handling that could make it ridiculous, or too unlike the original to be believed any longer.

A fool is wise in his eyes.

I’m a trained fine artist. I went to art school from the time I was 5 years old. I was, like, a prodigy out of Chicago. I’d been in national competitions from the age of 14.

Here in England, everyone’s a pop star, innit, whereas in America they believe in the term artist.

I’ve just finished my 20th book this past year and I’m working on my 21st book about the Middle East right now that I’ll finish this year. And I get up early in the morning and when I get tired of the computer and tired of doing research, I walk 20 steps out to my woodshop and I either build furniture or paint paintings. I’m an artist too.

The artist alone sees spirits. But after he has told of their appearing to him, everybody sees them.

As an entrepreneur, as an investor, I’m trying to be as educated as I can to where the progression of technological capability is going and what it does to these different categories that, me as an artist and an influencer, I can get involved and bring value.

Fiction is based on reality unless you’re a fairytale artist.

Before you try to keep up with the Joneses, be sure they’re not trying to keep up with you.

I’m over being a pop star. I don’t wanna be a hot girl. I wanna be iconic. And I feel like I’ve accomplished a lot. I feel like I’m highly respected, which is more important than any award or any amount of records. And I feel like there comes a point when being a pop star is not enough.

I can’t deny that label-support gave me a leg up – though not every successful artist needs it.

I think carrying moral baggage is very dangerous for an artist. If you have a duty, it’s to be true and not cover up the cracks.

I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinions of himself than on the opinions of others.

The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.

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

Working with J Balvin has undoubtedly been an unparalleled experience.

Don’t you love it that Prince doesn’t use Twitter? Don’t you think he’s somewhere on a unicorn?

I am Warhol. I am the No. 1 most impactful artist of our generation. I am Shakespeare in the flesh.

When you’re a pop star, it’s a little conservative; you always have to stay in a box. You have fans that are five and fans that are 65; there are so many people wanting so many things.

My days, my years, my life has seen up and downs, lights and darknesses. If I wrote only and continually of the ‚light‘ and never mentioned the other, then as an artist, I would be a liar.

An artist needn’t be a clergyman or a churchwarden, but he certainly must have a warm heart for his fellow men.

Madonna and I are very different. Just saying. We’re very different. I wouldn’t make that comparison at all, and I don’t mean to disrespect Madonna: she’s a nice lady, and she’s had a fantastic, huge career – biggest pop star of all time.

It’s a curse. I ask God to take this away from me all the time. I do not like being an artist.

I didn’t think Marilyn Monroe was beautiful. It used to worry me. I thought maybe I’m not put together like the other chaps.

You start to become successful, and everybody starts to drive your money train to the bank, and they’re not thinking anymore about what you want as an artist or if any of that even matters to you. It genuinely upsets people in my life that I don’t care about money, and that’s not my problem.