Jeff Vandermeer Quotes

I like the idea of multidisciplinary conversations, so in that spirit, I try and make a contribution from the art world into the music world.

I was excited by what my painter friends were doing, and they seemed to be interested in our poetry too, and that was a wonderful little, fizzy sort of world.

Great genius takes shape by contact with another great genius, but, less by assimilation than by fiction.

I read a blog about this young filmmaker in the Philippines who made a short film, and one of the characters in the film reads my novel and then starts discussing the novel with someone. The idea that my book can inspire another artist and be part of that other artist's work... that's the reason I write.

It is interesting to see what other designers do, and not work in a vacuum.

This adoration of an artist as a lone genius is quite misled, I think, because they are very much part of their time and their community.

Anything that is good influences the next thing. It's inevitable. I believe that Hollywood influences the comics, and the comics influence Hollywood - it's a cycle.

Art is a dialogue. I'm throwing rocks across a chasm and hoping people catch them on the other side.

I feel like everybody's inspired off of everybody.

A writer is, after all, only half his book. The other half is the reader and from the reader the writer learns.

It just makes you a better artist when you're with people who are great artists themselves. Being around Kanye, soaking up all the knowledge, all the stuff he got.

I swear I pick up little gems from every artist that I work with. That's why I'm so appreciative that I've been able to be a songwriter first.

I enjoy being influenced by other writers.

I get inspired by my friends, and if a friend is a writer, that is even deeper.

You can never tell when an artist really will take up someone's work and work with it happily.

I definitely want to work on a project with young designers, not just French but international.

It's not a special taste. An American composer should have something to say to a cab driver.

I would not necessarily say that scientists and artists need to collaborate with one another, but it would be helpful for them to talk to one another to, perhaps, give rise to specific ideas that may or may not be carried out together.

I love mixing amateurs and professionals.

When it's a sharing and improvisational meeting, where you're riffing off other people's ideas, that actually can be productive.

Getting to meet other artists that I admire is one of the best parts of my job. I don't know if I'd say 'star struck' as much as excited to hear other peoples' ideas.

Whenever I work with different artists, I expand as a song writer, as a producer, and I always want to try and find the bridge between my world and their world.

I can see how a relationship with a writer would be an easy thing.

What you learn from working with other performers and musicians is invaluable, really, and can only help you grow. I mean, if you spend your whole life focusing on yourself, you're not really learning much.

All of a sudden, there are great Japanese films, or great Italian films, or great Australian films. It's usually because there are a number of people that cross-pollinated each other.