Talent is cheap; dedication is expensive. It will cost you your life.

An artist without ideas is a mendicant; barren, he goes begging among the hours.

One should not become an artist because he can, but because he must. It is only for those who would be miserable without it.

Because it will make a real artist of you. The more you suffer, the more grateful you ought to be. An empty stomach is better than a full one, Van Gogh, and a broken heart is better than happiness. Never forget that!

He had been standing still; for an artist, one of the more painful forms of death.

We...believe that art is religious, because it is one of man's highest aspirations. There is no such thing as pagan art, only good and bad art.

It's freezing up here. What did you use to keep warm?""Indignation," said Michelangelo. "Best fuel I know. Never burns out.

Per me [la creazione] è come una giornata d'uragano quando la tramontana s'abbatte fischiando dai monti. L'arte per me è un tormento, angoscioso quando il lavoro va male, estasiante quando va bene: ma sempre mi possiede senza scampo. Al termine della mia giornata, sono un guscio vuoto: tutto ciò che v'era in me, è passato nel marmo o nell'affresco. Quindi non mi resta più nulla da dare altrove.

Bleed me of art, and there won't be enough liquid left in me to spit! [Michelangelo Buonorotti]