Jake Gyllenhaal Quotes

Writing, acting, music, comedy. A deep love of literature and books. Thank God for all the artists who've helped me.

I write, but I also act.

Careers don't interest me. The only thing that interests me is continuing to be a poet on one level or another, whether acting or writing or directing.

I try not to see myself as anything, as that would be embarrassing. But if I had to label myself, I'd probably say I was an artist due to the fact that I enjoy working within the arts on different platforms, of which comedy is just one.

I am equally a writer and an actor and a director.

I'd hate to be a writer forever and never perform, and I'd hate to perform and not write. I get sad if time has passed and I haven't written or made anything. I'm an artist.

The lives great artists live and the books they write are two very different things.

As an actress, you're living something through the duration of the play and its geography. I've always seen writing the same way. It's like somehow I'm moving through the terrain of the book as a performer.

The artists who want to be writers, read the reviews; the artists who want to write, don't.

I have a general feeling that writers and artists who are in this peculiar situation, of being a persecuted artist, all anyone ever asks about is the persecution. It may well be that's the last thing in the world they want to talk about. There were many years in which every journalist in the world wanted to talk to me, but nobody wanted to talk to me about my work. That felt deeply frustrating because I felt there was an attempt to stifle me as an artist. The best revenge I could have was to write.

An actor should take lessons from a painter and a sculptor.

I'm a sponge, the more I absorb, the more I am able to articulate my vision, as artists do, like Picasso. I'm an artist in that light. I went from being an artist to an artiste.

An artist is a person who has invented an artist.

They are always asking a writer why he does not write like somebody else, or a painter why he does not paint like somebody else, quite oblivious of the fact that if either of them did anything of the kind he would cease to be an artist.

Every story I've written was written because I had to write it. Writing stories is like breathing for me; it is my life.

It is true that every artist has his own religion.

The writing is amazing because having a hand in creating what you're going to be performing... there's nothing like it. It's always going to be better suited for you. You're always going to know the lines faster, because you wrote it. The writing is so very hard. It's the hardest part of the whole process. In some ways the acting is a lot easier and a lot more fun.

I am deeply moved when I write. I get turned on by it. I've never used any drugs for stimulation. I don't use words loosely. When I'm working and the right word comes, there is an answering resonance within me. There is also a hardness of intention that goes with it. There is no idleness in it.

On "Tonight" I think I was torn dreadfully between writing what I wanted to write, but keeping it in a style that would follow up what I had just done. That's where I feel I was untrue to myself as an artist . . . that album and, to a lesser extent, "Never Let Me Down."

I truly find such a sense of peace and calm when I'm working, and it's an inner peace that I've never been ever to achieve, doing anything else. It's where I feel most myself. I can access my power and strength, as an artist, and I can't imagine not doing it. I love it!

I feel like writing songs is cheating on acting. It's weird.

I've always had a really great time being in movies and writing music when I get home. The more creative I am, the more it feeds into other creative aspects of my life.

I love making art... It's largely how I see myself. I'm an artist; therefore I have to make art.

It's what I wanted to do with my life. Not necessarily just direct Jim Carrey movies, but to direct and act and write and create and along the way discover what it is that I'm about.

Sometimes I write music, sometimes I don't. I think I'm just writing more what's close to my heart, and musical stuff is close to my heart, and it's fun to write, and when something's fun to write you don't think about what statement you're trying to make or what genre you're trying to hone in on.