Struggling Artist Quotes & Sayings

I had to detach myself from myself, if that makes any sense, to conjure an authentic first-person voice. In that sense, it was similar to writing a first-person novel. But I was writing about real people, not fictional ones - myself, my family, my friends and boyfriends and ex-husband, and that was extremely tricky. — Kate Christensen

What it takes is to actually write: not to think about it, not to imagine it, not to talk about it, but to actually want to sit down and write. I'm lucky I learned that habit a really long time ago. I credit my mother with that. She was an English teacher, but she was a writer. — Luanne Rice

I burnt for the more active life of the world--for the more exciting toils of a literary career--for the destiny of an artist, author, orator; anything rather than that of a priest: yes, the heart of a politician, of a soldier, of a votary of glory, a lover of renown, a luster after power, beat under my curate's surplice. I considered; my life was so wretched, it must be changed, or I must die. After a season of darkness and struggling, light broke and relief fell: my cramped existence all at once spread out to a plain without bounds--my powers heard a call from heaven to rise, gather their full strength, spread their wings, and mount beyond ken. — Charlotte Bronte

This great artist is a man whose life-time is consumed by struggle : partly against material circumstances, partly against incomprehension, partly against himself ... In no other culture has the artist been thought of in this way. Why then in this culture? We have already referred to the exigencies of the open art market. But the struggle was not only to live. Each time a painter realized that he was dissatisfied with the limited role of painting as a celebration of material property and of the status that accompanied it, he inevitably found himself struggling with the very language of his own art as understood by the tradition of his calling.
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Every exceptional work was the result of a prolonged successful struggle. Innumerable works involved no struggle. There were also prolonged yet unsuccessful struggles. (P.104) — John Berger

The life of a chess master is much more difficult than that of an artist - much more depressing. An artist knows that someday there'll be recognition and monetary reward, but for the chess master there is little public recognition and absolutely no hope of supporting himself by his endeavors. If Bobby Fischer came to me for advice, I certainly would not discourage him - as if anyone could - but I would try to make it positively clear that he will never have any money from chess, live a monk-like existence and know more rejection than any artist ever has, struggling to be known and accepted. — Marcel Duchamp

Blake rolled her eyes, then leaned in and blew over the tomato soup, her plump lips forming the perfect O. I watched. Even Lex watched. The room went dead silent. She finally glanced up at us. Lex turned around and started whistling while I continued staring. "You blow well," I said in my most romantic voice. "Coming from you" -she shook her head-"I'll take that as the highest of compliments. — Rachel Van Dyken

The privilege of struggling artists is ... the life being buried in what we can't really afford of* what a gorgeous life!! — Hiroko Sakai

Pam was a struggling artist who made everyone's life difficult. She only wore black and after becoming acquainted with her I couldn't decide if this was a deliberate fashion choice or whether it was physically impossible for any color to escape from the gravitational pull of her dark and bitter personality. — Bob Smith

Talk about a struggling artist having to work against enormous odds ... But I love movies so much, so I'm going to do it. — Ariel Pink

With my friends in Brooklyn, many of them started out as artists. I saw many of these friends move into late middle age, still struggling without health insurance or a cushion. I saw people who had given up being artists. Being an artist necessitates a compromise or living on the edge. — Kate Christensen

Pick a sunset, and we'll ride off into it together. — T. M. Brenner

You're hot for two seconds, and you're struggling to get work again. If it were easy, I don't think that's a good place for an artist to work from. — Tatiana Maslany

I've dated the sweet mama's boy, the musician rocker, the struggling artist - basically a lot of people without jobs. — Alyssa Milano

I'm a Beethoven freak. I listen to him all the time. — David Canary

I whisper to the sea three times. Once I ask that Corr will be meek and good, so they'll have no reason to use the bells and magic that he so despises.
But twice I whisper for him to be despicable, so that they'll beg for me to come back. — Maggie Stiefvater

I know some people are like "I'm depressed and I'm a struggling artist" and that really works for some people, but that doesn't work for me. I have to be really happy, even when I'm writing my depressing songs; I have to come through that stage before I can write. I have to be in a good place. I'm a positive person. — Charli XCX

A lazy writer (it's easy to hate things) or a versatile one? I don't believe in an afterlife. We live and then we stop living. We exist and then we stop existing. That means I only get one chance to do a good job. I want to do a good job. — Lindy West

As a matter of principle, we believe patients should be able to see the right doctor at the right time. As a matter of principle, we believe nothing should interfere with that doctor-patient relationship. As a matter of principle, we believe all Americans deserve affordable, available, and reliable quality health care. — Bill Frist

I feel like I'm in a film about a struggling artist who keeps getting up at all hours of the night to look at his big, blank empty canvas. And in a way I am. Except that i'm not struggling. I'm Hector Kipling. I might be getting up at all hours of the night to look at my big, blank, empty canvas, but I am not fucking struggling. — David Thewlis

If you're a struggling artist having money problems just superglue a brick in the middle of a blanket, and call it art. Someone will buy it. — Nicole McKay

I love being a struggling artist; it makes me feel very alive. — Jonathan Evison

Without justice and love, peace will always be a great illusion. — Helder Camara

The difference between famous creators and struggling artists is that the creators know that improving the lives of others deserves the highest reward. — Alan Cohen

Above all, Danny Boyle's 'Slumdog Millionaire' is the work of an artist at the peak of his powers. India is his palette, and Mumbai - that teeming 'maximum city', with 19 million strivers on the make, jostling, scheming, struggling and killing for success - is his brush. — Shashi Tharoor

When people see me struggling on paper, I think it invites an almost collaborative relationship with the outside world, and that includes readers and other artists. — Adrian Tomine

All people are struggling to be creative in some way, and the artist is the one who has succeeded in this task of life. — Rollo May

You want car?' Rena said. 'Artist college? You think I don't know? How you think you pay? So this dress. Pretty dress. Someone gave. But money is ... ' She stopped, struggling to find the words, what money was. Finally, she threw her hands up. 'Money. You want remember, so just remember. — Janet Fitch

Well, that's what everyone wants, isn't it? Even these people who go out and have their noses shaved down to pencil erasers, and who get implants, and fillers, and who Botox their faces into immobility, they're all in search of the miracle that's going to make them feel like ... " She searched for the word. "Like themselves. — Beth Harbison

An outlaw gulch, a haven for draft resisters, struggling artists, and drug addicts ... a camp for semi-demented adults ... Venice is like the legendary Phoenix - it always seems to rise again from the ashes. — Sara Davidson

There's almost nothing worse to live with than a struggling artist. — John Updike

See that you mind your manners, that's all. No gentleman will buy the cow when he knows he can get the milk for nothing." Lily managed not to roll her eyes until she'd turned her back on Mrs. McAllister and stepped into the hall again. Caleb had come right out and admitted that he had no intention of "buying the cow" - he only wanted to rent it. Lily — Linda Lael Miller

Knavery seems to be so much a the striking feature of its inhabitants that it may not in the end be an evil that they will become aliens to this kingdom. — George III

When I need some striking inspiration about deep depression for my new painting, I just need to go to check my bank account ... — Hiroko Sakai

Everything in our age conspires to turn the writer, and every other kind of artist as well, into a minor official, working on themes handed to [him] from above and never telling what seems to him the whole of the truth. But in struggling against this fate he gets no help from his own side: that is, there is no large body of opinion which will assure him that he is in the right. — George Orwell

In an article titled "Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly," he showed that couching familiar ideas in pretentious language is taken as a sign of poor intelligence and low credibility. — Daniel Kahneman

I can live in L.A. as a struggling artist. I cannot live in New York as a struggling artist. — Gina Rodriguez

Any writer or journalist who wants to retain his integrity finds himself thwarted by the general drift of society rather than by active persecution. The sort of things that are working against him are the concentration of the press in the hands of a few rich men, the grip of monopoly on radio and the films, the unwillingness of the public to spend money on books, making it necessary for nearly every writer to earn part of his living by hackwork ... Everything in our age conspires to turn the writer, and every other kind of artist as well, into a minor official, working on themes handed down from above and never telling what seems to him the whole of the truth. But in struggling against this fate he gets no help from his own side: that is, there is no large body of opinion which will assure him that he's in the right. — George Orwell