My mother encouraged me to be artistic. It was written in a contract at an early age that I would be an artist.

The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid; the state of being alone.

The father is always a Republican toward his son, and his mother’s always a Democrat.

My dear sisters, whatever your calling, whatever your circumstances, we need your impressions, your insights, and your inspiration. We need you to speak up and speak out in ward and stake councils.

In order for me to be successful… In order to be a great artist – musician, actor, painter, whatever – you must be able to be private in public at all times. That is what we do.

I don’t like to beat people down. They need to be lifted up.

It ain’t as bad as you think. It will look better in the morning.

What makes a song last is real content from a mind that is thinking a little bit harder about certain things. A lot of artists don’t really think that hard.

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.

And I come here as a daughter, raised on the South Side of Chicago – by a father who was a blue-collar city worker and a mother who stayed at home with my brother and me.

If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him.

A true artist is expected to be all that is noble-minded, and this is not altogether a mistake; on the other hand, however, in what a mean way are critics allowed to pounce upon us.

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

I know so many people who feel hopeless, and they ask me, ‚What should I do?‘ And I say: ‚Act. Do something.‘ Because that is the best medicine against sadness and depression.

I don’t really have a gimmick or a ‚thing.‘ I’m one of the few artists who gets to be himself every day.

A development deal is where they’re giving you recording time and money to record, but not promising that they’ll put an album out.

Art is making something out of nothing and selling it.

I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict.

A true friend encourages us, comforts us, supports us like a big easy chair, offering us a safe refuge from the world.

No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.

My mother was a very wonderful woman. When she and my dad divorced, she moved to California and worked two jobs in the cannery at night and as a waitress during the day. But she saved enough money to establish a restaurant.

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

Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term Art, I should call it ‚the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.‘ The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of ‚Artist.‘

My mother was a powerful influence. She made me toe the line. If I didn’t have a perfect report card, she showed her disappointment.

I don’t have stylistic loyalty. That’s why people perceive me changing all the time. But there is a real continuity in my subject matter. As an artist of artifice, I do believe I have more integrity than any one of my contemporaries.

When I was a child I asked my mother what homosexuality was about and she said – and this was 100 years ago in Germany and she was very open-minded – ‚It’s like hair color. It’s nothing. Some people are blond and some people have dark hair. It’s not a subject.‘ This was a very healthy attitude.

Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American mother to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap – let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in primers, spelling books, and in almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice.

The true artist is not proud: he unfortunately sees that art has no limits; he feels darkly how far he is from the goal, and though he may be admired by others, he is sad not to have reached that point to which his better genius only appears as a distant, guiding sun.

I must confess, I was born at a very early age.

I think business has to be stupider. I want to do really straightforward, stupid business – just talk to me like a 4-year-old. And I refuse to negotiate. I do not negotiate. I can collaborate. But I’m an artist, so as soon as you negotiate, you’re being compromised.

I remember at the age of five travelling on a trolley car with my mother past a group of women on a picket line at a textile plant, seeing them being viciously beaten by security people. So that kind of thing stayed with me.

I wanted to only create a great perfume, not any perfume that would sell, but a great artistic one that the fans would not feel cheated by.

Mr. T. been to chemo, Mr. T been to radiation, hair fall out… but he’s back. Now I can give hope when I go to the hospital, see the sick kids with cancer, tell them, don’t quit.

My mother was a public school teacher in Virginia, and we didn’t have any money, we just survived on happiness, on being a happy family.

The generous Critic fann’d the Poet’s fire, And taught the world with reason to admire.

The only really committed artist is he who, without refusing to take part in the combat, at least refuses to join the regular armies and remains a freelance.

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.

If a country is to be corruption free and become a nation of beautiful minds, I strongly feel there are three key societal members who can make a difference. They are the father, the mother and the teacher.

Mostly, my flying has been solo, but the preparation for it wasn’t. Without my husband’s help and encouragement, I could not have attempted what I have. Ours has been a contented and reasonable partnership, he with his solo jobs and I with mine. But always with work and play together, conducted under a satisfactory system of dual control.

You will never exaggerate when you speak good things of God. It is not possible to do so. Try, dear brethren, and boast in the Lord.

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

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.

I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.

A word of encouragement from a teacher to a child can change a life. A word of encouragement from a spouse can save a marriage. A word of encouragement from a leader can inspire a person to reach her potential.

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

My mother was an Earth Mother and the nicest person in the world.

When your mother asks, ‚Do you want a piece of advice?‘ it is a mere formality. It doesn’t matter if you answer yes or no. You’re going to get it anyway.

Encouragement to all women is – let us try to offer help before we have to offer therapy. That is to say, let’s see if we can’t prevent being ill by trying to offer a love of prevention before illness.

I do love being in my studio. Especially at night.

My mother was born in Baltimore, and before her marriage, she was an artist and teacher of art.

Love matches, so called, have illusion for their father and need for their mother.

Being an artist doesn’t just mean you have a song. That doesn’t make you an artist. The word ‚artist‘ means so many different things, and I feel like to be a real one, you really have to do it all. The people that I think of as artists – Tyler the Creator, Childish Gambino, Kanye West – are doing the most.

My role in society, or any artist’s or poet’s role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all.

Each morning when I awake, I experience again a supreme pleasure – that of being Salvador Dali.

My mother is a strong, wonderful woman. I could never be anything she didn’t want me to be.

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

Bring them on.

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

An author who speaks about their own books is almost as bad as a mother who speaks about her own children.

Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: ‚I’m with you kid. Let’s go.‘

The artist forges himself to the others, midway between the beauty he cannot do without and the community he cannot tear himself away from. That is why true artists scorn nothing: they are obliged to understand rather than to judge.