Adrian Tomine Quotes

Partying isn't as important to me anymore like it was when I was younger.

I'm still grappling with all the things most people resolve by the time they're 35. Maybe that's why I make music that is relevant to young people. I'm emotionally stuck at the age of 13.

Over the years, I was never really driven to become a solo artist, but I was curious to find out who I was as an individual creative person. It's taken some time, but now I feel I've truly paid my dues. I guess I'm at a point now where I'm more comfortable in my own skin.

I grew up thinking art was pictures until I got into music and found I was an artist and didn't paint.

Certain elements of teen life that, 10 years ago, were very important to me still, are becoming less so as I get older. I mean, I've kinda gotten over, I guess I'm saying, the fact that I had trouble getting a date for the prom.

There was a time when I only wanted to show off, but as I've grown older, I've realised that acting isn't an end in itself. You act to communicate something, and if you have to use an accent or become thin or fat, that's part of your job.

I am the same artist with the same nagging questions I had in my early 20's. What's real and what isn't? How do we tell what's real in our lives? How do we see things as they are? What is my role in life? If the Signature hadn't forced the issue by devoting its season to my plays, I could at least believe I had changed. Really, they're all the same! What is SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION but THE HOUSE OF BLUE LEAVES with money?

My art is rooted in a single reflection: why am I not as others are? ... my art gives meaning to my life.

In the past, I was definitely more apt to storing pain away and not worrying about it. But as I get older, it's really about figuring out how to process it, how to feel it, and then also how to use it in my art.

Especially for people of our generation, who really celebrated certain attitudes - the outsider, the loner - it can have a real impact on the art when they realize, I have friends, I'm married, or I have kids. That's certainly happened to me.

Every movie that I've done, they don't stand independently from one another because a little bit of me is in every single one of those, and it's part of my own personal growth.

What I love about my daughter is that she is going to definitely allow me and force me to change my life and slow down and make it more about the real things in the world.

If modern art has produced symbols that are unfamiliar, that was only to be expected.

I don't want to just be an actor my whole life. I mean I do want to be an actor my whole life but not only an actor, I want to be an artist.

I was looking in the mirror the other day and I realized I haven't changed much since I was in my twenties. The only difference is I look a whole lot older now.

I'm in a different chapter of my life. As time goes by and I grow older, I find that I need to just be quiet and think. There have been periods when I've locked myself away for days, but now it's different - I'm married and we have a daughter who is in my office the whole time.

Over the years, you grow up, you mature and you see things in a different way, and it's reflected in the writing.

In every human being there is the artist, and whatever his activity, he has an equal chance with any to express the result of his growth and his contact with life. I don't believe any real artist cares whether what he does is 'art' or not. Who, after all, knows what art is?

It's a real luxury to be able to develop with your character.

I was having a good time before, but you grow up after a couple years and realize, "I can't get drunk like this every night." Things change.

One of the chief differences between an adult and a juvenile is that the adult knows when he is an ass while the juvenile never does.

I didn’t see any difference between being a photographer or being an artist. I didn’t make those boundaries. If someone wants to think it’s art, that’s great, but I’ll let history decide.

I used to act dumb. That act is no longer cute. Now, I would like to make a difference God has given me this new chance.

I switched up so that I could work 12-hour shifts at the firm on the weekends so I could have days free to paint. But it was almost like I had a secret life, because I wasn't showing any of my work. It was just in my house. In '89, I got a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. That's when I started to get into group shows. Suddenly I sort of "came out" as an artist.