The object of art is not to make salable pictures. It is to save yourself.
The reason a poet is a poet is to write poems, not to advertise himself as a poet.
I don't think about whether it's gonna be a dance record or a ballad or anything when I'm making music. I sit in the studio and I think, 'How am I feeling today?' and I write how I feel. It's really, really simple.
Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future.
If you're a painter, you don't go, 'Abstract's really selling, so that's what I'm going to do.' If you're really truly an artist, you have to think what you're meant to paint.
Most women writers don't interest me because they're hung up with being a woman, they're hung up with being Jewish, they're hung up with being somebody or other. Rather than just going, just spurting, just creating.
We are talking about an artist; and for the enjoyment of the artist the mask must be to some extent moulded on the face. What he makes outside him must correspond to something inside him; he can only make his effects out of some of the materials of his soul.
Your own material is your identity, and I think that's what you need to stick to.
