Mike Mignola Quotes

I want to tell stories that I feel for, and I don't want to be a sell-out.

To labor in the arts for any reason other than love is prostitution.

The artists who stand out to me have a passion for what they do. There are a lot of people who can sing. It's just like when you go to church and people are singing because it sounds good, not because it feels good. There's a difference.

Somehow you can tell the difference when a song is written just to get on the radio and when what someone does is their whole life. That comes through in Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Willie Nelson. There is no separating their life from their music.

I know this sounds phony, but I don't start out on a project going, 'I'm going to make an emotional work,' you know what I mean? You try to tell the story directly and honestly and with passion.

I feel like what I owe my audience is what I'm most passionate about.

As an artist, you have to do what you feel passionate about. It has to be something you can connect with.

I wanna make music that I feel proud of when I'm onstage, that I feel like I put my all into.

I just try to be true to myself and write about things I'm passionate about. I think what most people don't like about movies is they can tell that most movies are a product, and they don't mean that much to the people who make them.

My concepts are never bright ideas; they're never notions I think will sell or be trendy or attract new fans. I don't think that way. All I can do is sing from my life.

I just like to do different things. What is more important than the name is that people know that I really like acting, I enjoy it and I want people to know that I am serious.

Whether it be in acting, music, or even in dancing, I only want to do things that I truly connect to, and with my music, it's everything that I am.

The only living works are those which have drained much of the author's own life into them.

You have to find something that you have to obsess over if you're making a movie about it. As a director, you have to be able to pick something that excites you enough that you can breathe it every day.

I'm doing what I do for the right reasons. I love the music that I make.

All I try to do is to write music that feels meaningful to me, that has commitment and passion behind it.

I always say to my agents, you go through one of these big kind of movies, everyone makes money, but like, I said, 'I'm the one who's gotta go make it, and if I don't have my heart in it, and it's like a love affair, I'm not going to do a good job. Then, and I don't want to just get paid. I just, I don't want to do that.'

I just really always try to do what's in my heart and I'm still passionate about the music; I still love what I am doing.

I think what you're always looking for as artists is to be honest and to continue to be honestly driven by that which you are passionately engaged with. It should need not be forced.

People in independent film have a passion; they're not in it for the money.

If it doesn't come from your heart, music just doesn't work.

I knew it would be hard work, but that's the reason you're an actor. If you're a bricklayer, you don't want to just show up at someone's house and put a little row of bricks around their garden. You want to build a building.

You better mean what you're singing or you need to get out of this business. That's where I'm really lucky because they know I mean what I'm singing or I ain't gonna sing it.

I have never been able to separate - nor have I wanted to - my personal love and desire for truth, passion, and understanding from my lyrics.

I'd advise all you songwriters out there, if you're getting into it for the business, go home and get a job digging ditches or something. Get a life. You'll learn a lot more, and you won't write a lot of rotten poetry.