Mary Oliver Quotes

The worst state of affairs is when science begins to concern itself with art.

Once I've written something it does tend to run away from me. I don't seem to have any part of it - it's no longer my piece of writing.

When the uncreative tell the creative what to do, it stops being art.

I practice the artist's golden rule. I wouldn't want somebody telling me how to finish my painting, I'm not going to tell him how to finish his movie or how to shape his movie.

What you're really after when you see a film or listen to a song is a singular vision, and I'm not sure how much of that you really get in Hollywood.

When I'm writing music, I'm not playing a character. I'm not Alice Cooper or Gene Simmons or someone like that, who has acknowledged that they are writing music for a character.

Any system that sees aesthetics as irrelevant, that separates the artist from his product, that fragments the work of the individual, or creates by committee, or makes mincemeat of the creative process will, in the long run, diminish not only the product but the maker as well.

I feel that recording a song already compromises the magical music one can create in the mind, so the fewer people watering down this process the better.

The condition every art requires is, not so much freedom from restriction, as freedom from adulteration and from the intrusion of foreign matter.

As a painter, it seemed easier to sort of disappear.

I allowed artists to play for as long as they felt they could justifiably continue to create.

Allow the artist to finish the piece of work before you critique it.

I'm always looking for a reason to say no when I'm approached about a big studio tentpole because your fear is will you be consumed into the anonymous machine, and it will suck out any specificity and point of view that you might hope to express.

Preserving that privacy between a writer and the work is important. You have to shut out all those voices that have reacted to your work.

It's impossible to control the reception of your work - the only thing you can control is the experience of writing itself, and the work you create.

We make a contract within ourselves as actors or directors or writers about how much of ourselves we let into projects. You can actually figure out before you work on something how much blood you will have to let emotionally.

That dichotomy between the public consumption of the work and my intent and practice in making it is an uneasy one for me, on occasion.

As a producer, you're pretty much creating a body of work that an artist has to stand behind.

You know, if one paints someone's portrait, one should not know him if possible.

It has nothing to do with commercial success. You cannot calculate in your head how to put the mosaic together to make a commercial film: that's out of the question.

We are going to finish this picture just the way I want it... because you cannot compromise an artist's vision.

As an artist, the most important thing and the most special thing is when your intention shines through on the work.

I decided to do whatever I could to make sure the business side of music didn't intrude on the creative part.

Stand up for yourself and fight for your right to be the artist that you want to be. There's plenty of pressure from outside; people tell you how to dress and how to sing or what to sing, but I always felt like if I'm going to fail or succeed, I want to do it on my own terms.

One of the worst things that can happen to an artist is to perceive himself as the owner of his art, and art as his tool. A product of the marketplace sensibility, this attitude barely differs on a psychological plane from the patron's view of the artist as a paid employee.