Neil Simon Quotes

An essential element of any art is risk. If you don't take a risk then how are you going to make something really beautiful, that hasn't been seen before?

We have to take risks with art. If we don't, it all becomes a bit boring.

With soccer, I have the ability to do things differently. That is why I admire Leonardo da Vinci. He was able to create things other people wouldn't believe in.

We artists can only go so far as the people can follow us. We are not alone, we are part of the system. We can take risks, but if you want to go to the peak of your consciousness, you may very well find yourself alone. Even if you know how to translate what you see, maybe only ten people will be able to understand what you tell. But, if you have faith in your vision, and retell it again and again, you will start noticing that, after a time, more people will begin to catch up with you.

I look at people like Picasso and Da Vinci and Escher and Miles Davis, and they'll write or paint that one definitive masterpiece of maybe 50 that they have that's really trying to go outside the box, trying to do something that's tough. And then when you accomplish it, you look back and go, 'Yeeaaaah - masterpiece.'

He is the greatest artist who has embodied, in the sum of his works, the greatest number of the greatest ideas.

From the very beginning, I've always just wanted to do something I've never done before. I'm still just trying to be on that path. It's all about working with filmmakers that you believe in.

I think if you don't risk something in art, it's not really important.

Risk is what separates the artist from the artisan.

You cannot play for safety and make art.

Painting must be fertile. It must give birth to a world.. ..it must fertilize the imagination.

The book, the college, the school of art, the institution of any kind, stop with some past utterance of genius. . . . They look backward and not forward. But genius looks forward: the eyes of man are set in his forehead, not in his hindhead: man hopes: genius creates. Whatever talents may be, if the man create not, the pure efflux of the Deity is not his; - cinders and smoke there may be, but not yet flame.

The moment you cheat for the sake of beauty, you know you're an artist.

I take references from the past and flip them.

My respect for artists is very high. I think to get the most out of them, you have to liberate them. I think part of liberating them is saying, 'Come up with something brilliant, new, and fresh. Stop thinking based on what has been beat into you by executives or publishers in terms of what's going to work and what's not. Don't react, just act.'

Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal.

Art means to dare - and to have been right.

The creative act amazes me. Whether it's poetry, whether it's music, it's an amazing process, and it has something to do with bringing forth the old out into the world to create and to bring forth that which will rejuvenate.

Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.

But now I realize that this record business really needs me. No one else is trying to take a chance or do something different.

You need to get outside of your comfort zone to write songs that are interesting, songs that are compelling, songs that are different from what other people are writing.

Art revolves around creating something that isn't there.

I admire people who are creative.

Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.

I think the idea of art kills creativity.