Suffering Artist Quotes

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.

A great writer is nothing less than a martyr who does not die.

What is a poet? An unhappy man who hides deep anguish in his heart, but whose lips are so formed that when the sigh and cry pass through them, it sounds like lovely music.... And people flock around the poet and say: 'Sing again soon' - that is, 'May new sufferings torment your soul but your lips be fashioned as before, for the cry would only frighten us, but the music, that is blissful.

I subscribe to the myth that an artist's creativity comes from torment. Once that's fixed, what do you draw on?

I don't have a burning desire to go out and document anything. It just happens when it happens. It's not a conscious effort, nor is it a struggle. Wouldn't do it if it was. The idea of the suffering artist has never appealed to me. Being here is suffering enough.

Kill the idea of the lone, suffering artist. Don't make it any harder on yourself.

I always found the concept of a tortured artist distasteful.

The more perfect the artist, the more completely separate in him will be the man who suffers and the mind which creates.

When you're young and everything dramatic is exciting, you start to believe that hype that, in order to be an artist, you have to suffer. I've graduated from that school.