Artistic Obligation Quotes

You don't say no to a Shankar film.

I used to hate, with a capitol H, making videos. It was nothing but a chore. It was something you had to do to have your music accepted in the visual medium.

I would be miserable if I went to bed without having written 1,000 words about something.

So far as I am concerned, poetry and every other art was and is and forever will be strictly and distinctly a question of individuality... If poetry is your goal, you've got to forget all about punishments and all about rewards and all about self-styled obligations and duties and responsibilities etcetera ad infinitum and remember one thing only: that it's you - nobody else - who determine your destiny and decide your fate. Nobody else can be alive for you; nor can you be alive for anybody else... There's the artist's responsibility; and the most awful responsibility on earth.

Is it the obligation of great art to be continually interesting? I think not.

I think the obligation of an artist is to make a difference in the world. That is what matters most to me. I think that artists are the leaders of the world because they do not have a connection to the industrial complex, the day-to-day short-term survival that most people are involved with.

Writing is like the relationship with your bowels. First you can, then you can't. Finally, you must. Only then should you reach for the paper.

An artist has an obligation to tell the truth. [...] that the true horrors of human history derive not from orcs and Dark Lords, but from ourselves. We are the monsters. (And the heroes too). Each of us has within himself the capacity for great good, and great evil.

Art has an obligation to offend

When you're a writer, you have to write these stories, even if you don't get paid

You can't argue with someone who believes, or just passionately suspects, that the poet's function is not to write what he must write but, rather, to write what he would write if his life depended on his taking responsibility for writing what he must in a style designed to shut out as few of his old librarians as humanly possible.

Real writers are those who want to write, need to write, have to write.

At the end of the day I am a writer, and if I don't take care of this, no one else will.

I pushed against doing a podcast for so long. I'm a very late comer to the podcast game. But you're responsibility as a comedian is to get your viewpoints out into the world, and we have a lot more avenues to do that. So it's a lot more opportunity, but really have to work all the time.

I felt obligated to change music to art, the same way that Galileo proved the Earth was round to the world and that the Sun did not stand still.

I think we have an obligation to put on a fun show and put on a concert that's memorable, that's energetic and that spreads joy and open-mindedness. If being open-minded and joyful is against your political beliefs, then you know, f**k you.

I stopped asking a long time ago, "why would you want me to play that?" I'm an actor. That's what I do.

Actually, when I write, there is a feeling of necessity, of something that is stronger than myself that demands that I must write as I write.

An artist, under pain of oblivion, must have confidence in himself, and listen only to his real master: Nature.

You confuse two things: solving a problem and stating a problem correctly. It is only the second that is obligatory for an artist.

I know how to make it a great musical. I've got to. It's like I've got to see it on stage.

You could tie my hands to my sides, I suppose, but I have to write. For my own mental health, I need to write.

I love making art... It's largely how I see myself. I'm an artist; therefore I have to make art.

In independent music, you are the badshah and there are no restrictions, which allow you to embrace your true music. Whereas in playback, your first obligation is to your music director and then to your sensibilities.

The first obligation of the writer is to be interesting. To be interesting; not to change the world.