Gertrude Stein Quotes

I never think about what others are doing. I do a film for myself, not others.

You never undertake a project because you think other people will like it - because that way lies madness - but rather because you believe in it.

It isn't important to me how people respond to my work.

I don't really look at the charts at all. If anything, I try to out-do what I've done before. I try to make music that I like and I trust my own judgement with what will work with a wider audience. If you compare yourself to the charts, you lose perspective on what you're doing and why you're doing it.

It's really important to create something, like with my creations as a musician. Just let it flow. Focus on how to deliver message to audience. Don't get ego.

The thing I hate most in acting is asking permission to do things. What you really want to do is say, 'This is my need; this is what's going to get me further; this is what's going to be alive. I don't ever say, 'Do you mind if...?' I just come in and do it.

He who does without the praise of the crowd will not deny himself an opportunity to be his own adherent.

I think as long as you're being creative and finding your own work interesting, that's all that matters.

I have enough motivation just not looking like an idiot on national television. The fear of disappointing people is certainly higher.

Nothing makes an actor feel freer and more inventive and more creative than being trusted.

It's cool that people like what I do, but I don't work for the audience.

I've never really been aware of what is said about me, whether it's positive or negative. I ignore it. I've always had the mind-set: 'No one can challenge me better than myself.'

I'm just an individual who doesn't feel that I need to have somebody qualify my work in any particular way. I'm working for me.

I just love the idea of going into a room and creating something by myself.

I don't like to do something just to prove I can do it.

There is a fascination with the idea that one has 'seen someone else do something' before one can achieve it. Maybe that's true in some cases, but clearly it is not a requirement. I knew what I wanted to do.

I've never really allowed anyone else to tell me whether I'm good or not.

If people like something you've done - or don't like it - this shouldn't determine what you write or how you write it. Those are two separate things entirely: your work and the world's response to it.

I am not one who needs to be patted on the back every single day and told I am brilliant. Some players need that, I don't.

The one thing about my life that's different from others is that I wake up for no one, and for some reason, that's just good for your creativity.

It's funny, but no matter how good an artist is, it's not until he stands on his own two feet and sticks to his guns that things are going to come together.

What people don't normally know about us is the hustle is very real, and it's sorely driven a lot by how we consider ourselves. We don't pay a whole lot of attention to any type of judgment that we might get from outside people. I think that comes from growing up onstage.

I want to be able to deliver the kind of show that I want - to go onstage with my chin held up.

Whenever I go onstage or in front of a camera, I always want to pour my soul out because I know I have a lot to offer.

This goes for our songwriting as well as our success as a band - the minute we stopped chasing what we thought people wanted to hear and started writing things that moved us, that's when people started paying attention.