52 Quotes by Michael Gungor

When the creator sees the illusion of fame for what it is, it loses its power over him.

Our deepest beliefs about the universe filter their way up through the soil into the tiny aesthetic decisions that the artist makes. How we make our records. Which color feels right. Rhyme schemes and word choices. These kinds of decisions are rarely made out of purely analytical comparison. They come from the guts. From faith.

Money is not the root of all kinds of evil. The love of money is. It's also the root of a lot of bad art.

Money may be the primary standard of value in our culture, but it also has an uncanny ability to cheapen things.

The more successful the work, the more people will step in to try to influence and manipulate the work for their own benefit.

Not every artist has to make a living making art. Millions of people who play guitar would do well to keep their day jobs. Plenty of people make incredible art "on the side". William Faulkner wasn't any less of an artist for writing As I lay Dying on the back of a wheelbarrow during breaks in his job shoveling coal for the electric company.

Creator, if what you are creating has grown insipid and dull, perhaps you ought to take a step back for a moment. Before you go back to your instrument, your pen, your brush-take a breath and remember how to listen again.

In cultures like these, entertainment often becomes paramount. When a culture's greatest enemy is boredom, its greatest savior is entertainment.

When art becomes a mere distraction from our first-world boredom, it will devolve into something less human. It will become animalistic and trite. But it will certainly be entertaining.