Art and relligion are not professions: they are not occupations for which men can be paid. The artist and the saint do what they have to do, not to make a living, but in obedience to some mysterious necessity. They do not product to live - they live to produce.

Fear doesn't go away. The warrior and the artist live by the same code of necessity, which dictates that the battle must be fought anew every day.

We who are in the arts are at the risk of being in a popularity contest rather than a profession. If that fact causes you despair . . . pick another profession. Your desire to communicate must be bigger than your relationship with the chaotic and unfair realities . . . We have to create our own standards of discipline.

...leaning over the bright display among the back aisles of a forbidden arcade, rows of other players silent, unnoticed, closing time never announced, playing for nothing but the score itself, the row of numbers, a chance of entering her initials among those of other strangers for a brief time, no longer the time the world observed but game time, underground time, time that could take her nowhere outside its own tight and falsely deathless perimeter.

The only prophecy the artist can make with confidence is that he and his message will be misunderstood by a world that values all the wrong things.

What if your art could provide everything you ever needed or wanted in life?

The art industry is of the courageous people because it takes "wise" courage to pursue your art for a living.

You cannot define good or bad in art. It’s all about the way you look at things around you”, I replied.

Observe yourself as you start to drift toward the internet, searching for confirmation that you suck, and then use that impetus as a signal to instead turn off your phone or internet connection and be messy in your art for an hour without the intention of making anything in particular.

I strongly believe staying wildly impulsive, murderously moody and gutsily irritated is the font of an artist.