Artistic Calling Quotes

Sometimes I wonder why I'm a novelist right now. There is no definite career reason why I became a writer. Something happened, and I became a writer. And now I'm a successful writer.

Only be an actor if you can't be happy doing anything else. I don't think you should be an actor if you want to be actor. I think you should be an actor if you have to be an actor.

writers do not choose their subjects; their subjects choose them.

I don't know why I write. If I knew the answer, I probably wouldn't have to. But it is a compulsion. You don't choose it, it chooses you. And I wouldn't recommend it to anybody.

I believe that if you're an artist, it's like a gift. If you can do this for a living and you can be involved in it, it's something that you can't ignore. It's the chance for you to have a voice and create something from yourself.

I've always been a dancer, and I will always be a dancer.

An artist is born like a priest is born. If they are born an artist, I would tell them art is not a game: it is something very serious which completely requires everything you have to give.

Me wanting to be an artist never really faded away. I knew that no matter what else I tried to pursue, my passion was always that.

My dedication to trying to be a poet started very, very young, and I was very well encouraged by good teachers and by older friends and so on, so I think it is a benediction, and I also think it is a calling, a duty.

You talk about meant to be - oh my goodness, I have never done anything else in my life except be a performer.

The artist, and particularly the poet, is always an anarchist in the best sense of the word. He must heed only the call that arises within him from three strong voices: the voice of death, with all its foreboding, the voice of love and the voice of art.

It was clear from the beginning that I was going to be a musician.

The writer is a writer because he cannot help it. It is a compulsion.

To decide to become a philosopher seemed as foolish to me as to decide to become a poet.

I've known since I was five that I wanted to be a writer.

I've always had a flare for the dramatic. I thought about being an actor and I thought about directing, but writing truly became something I needed to do, just to stay sane. It's my over-pressure valve.

To be a poet did not occur to me. It was indeed a threshold guarded by demons.

It seemed like a very small possibility for me to become an artist. I didn't have the need to be on the stage; I didn't feel the need to be heard. I just needed to write.

By the single example of this painter devoted to his art with such independence, my destiny as a painter opened out to me.

Still, no one finally knows what a poet is supposed either to be or to do. Especially in this country, one takes on the job—because all that one does in America is considered a "job"—with no clear sense as to what is required or where one will ultimately be led. In that respect, it is as particular an instance of a "calling" as one might point to. For years I've kept in mind, "Many are called but few are chosen." Even so "called," there were no assurances that one would be answered.

I am a great artist and I know it. It's because of what I am that I have endured so much suffering, so as to pursue my vocation, otherwise I would consider myself a rogue - which is what many people think I am, for that matter.

I became an actor because I couldn't not.

I always find it fascinating to ask people, why they've chosen to live their life as an artist? Why be an actor, a singer, an author, a filmmaker? I've heard such inspiring answers to that question.

Why do writers, say, give up a job in economics and decide to write poetry? Or, why do they give up a job in a bank and decide to paint, like Krishan Khanna? They want to convey something.

At eight, I made a commitment to poetry. Until then, I thought I'd be a policeman. But I went a whole night without sleeping, and the next day the world had changed. It needed a different language.