Simon McBurney Quotes

I don't like people telling me what to do, or trying to MAKE me write songs.

I'm certainly not who people think I am. I always do whatever I want to do, and my films are personal to me.

I try to please myself. I don't try to anticipate what people want to see.

If I'm going to go out to be a solo artist, it's because I want to do something different without having to wait on someone else's schedule or hobbies or be limited by other people's prejudices. I'd be kind of stupid not to exercise that.

I like to choose my own way forward. I really do want to create something that I personally like a lot.

I don't care what other people think any more about me writing my own parts.

When it came to my art, I went my own way and did not follow the trends.

I never wanted to be a feature - that was never the goal with my music. I didn't want to just live through other people's work.

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.

The beautiful thing about being independent and having my own label is I can say whatever the hell I want.

I can only do music if I can do it the way I can do it.

I wanna take what I'm doing and create something around it as opposed to trying to fit into someone else's world.

I've always wanted to be my own player from the start and do things a bit differently to what the others do. I want to play my own way.

I am trying to be true to the work that I want to do and be allowed to make the choices that I want to make.

I am very much my own person and my own artist.

But you see," said Roark quietly, "I have, let’s say, sixty years to live. Most of that time will be spent working. I’ve chosen the work I want to do. If I find no joy in it, then I’m only condemning myself to sixty years of torture. And I can find the joy only if I do my work in the best way possible to me. But the best is a matter of standards—and I set my own standards. I inherit nothing. I stand at the end of no tradition. I may, perhaps, stand at the beginning of one.

Good or bad, the one thing I can say about my art is, if I can quote Sinatra, I did it my way.

I didn't come to Hollywood to be subservient to anyone else's vision.

Sometimes I don't want to be in the confines of what a band seems to provide.

I feel like the point of being an artist is to have your own voice: to do it the way you would do it and not the way anyone else would do it. If you're a strong enough writer, then that voice is going to come out all the time, and I can't stop it from coming out, no matter what I do.

Very few artists are as independent as I am mentally, physically, spiritually and technically. I sit in my home studio and record things by myself. I don't need to get anybody's approval or validation.

My parents were quite liberal with us, always encouraging us to be our own person and be creative.

I guess I created LeRoy Neiman. Nobody else told me how to do it. Well, I'm a believer in the theory that the artist is as important as his work.

The reason I always insisted on signing my work was not to be subordinate to anyone.

Everything in my career is my decision - every picture, every outfit. You get one chance at this, and I never saw myself as being a puppet.