...she (the artist, the writer) doesn't wait for inspiration, she acts in the anticipation of its apparition.

The working artist will not tolerate trouble in her life because she knows trouble prevents her from doing her work.

The awakening an artist must be ruthless, not only with herself but with others.

The artist must be like that Marine. He has to know how to be miserable. He has to love being miserable.

The artist committing himself to his calling has volunteered for hell.

You know, Hitler wanted to be an artist. At eighteen he took his inheritance, seven hundred kronen, and moved to Vienna to live and study... Ever see one of his paintings? Neither have I. Resistance beat him. Call it overstatement but I'll say it anyway: it was easier for Hitler to start World War II than it was for him to face a blank square of canvas.

I guess what I want to say to us artists and entrepreneurs is that conventional yardsticks of success don't apply to all enterprises. Labors of love count.

Artists are modest. They know they're not doing the work; they're just taking dictation.

As artists and professionals, it is our obligation to enact our own internal revolution, a private insurrection inside our own skulls. In this uprising we free ourselves from the tyranny of consumer culture.