Top 1200 Successful Artists Quotes & Sayings

I think the biggest lesson is the common one that gets in the way of most of us as artists - there are these messages in society that if you aren't hitting certain metrics, then you're not successful and you're not valid.

I want to be successful. Not just money. Just making a successful record and a successful show... I could feel successful without selling a million records.

It was amazing to be on the map, to be recognised by other artists, and to be so successful.

The Internet is a big reason I've been successful so far. It's working for a lot of new wave artists, which I consider myself a part of.

All comic-book artists secretly want a successful television or movie project because of the wider audience.

The people love when you give them a part of you. You know what I mean? Those are the most successful artists. Artists with a story to tell when the people can feel that they are growing with you.

I hope my work has inspired young artists. I have always tried to maintain my freedom as an artist and I feel it is one of the main reasons I have been successful.

Successful artists don't follow trends; they create them.

While working for Diplomat Records, I helped several artists with their online branding and social media. Once I left the label, I worked directly with artists and noticed many artists were overlooked and underrated if they weren't in 'XXL' or 'The Source.'

There's certain artists that are meant to have certain paths and go the way of the corporate world. And then there are artists who are artists.

A show can be artistically successful; a show can be financially successful; a show can be successful by the transformative experience the audience is having; a show can be successful from the point of view of what is experienced by the cast and the company on a daily basis.

Is it better to strive for success as a self-representing artist or try to get your feet wet in the gallery world? That is such a common question these days among artists. I truly believe that most artists will come to a cross road where they will have to decide on which route to take as it's extremely hard to be successful in both worlds.

When people talk about successful retailers and those that are not so successful, the customer determines at the end of the day who is successful and for what reason.

I've always associated consciousness with artists like Bob Marley or Joni Mitchell or Bob Dylan. You know, artists that really talked about what was going on in the world and really artists that are timeless.

You have to learn how to read contracts, how to position yourself, and about marketing. That is why you find the most successful artists are the ones who can mix creativity with business.

When we talk about contemporary art and contemporary artists, we usually imagine artists who are alive. But I feel very uncomfortable about placing a border between living artists and dead artists.

Other artists, they write 13 songs, and hopefully one or two of them are successful singles. And the other 11, for the most part, are filler.

The major difference I've found between the highly successful and the least successful is that the highly successful stick to it. They have staying power. Everybody fails. Everybody takes his knocks, but the highly successful keep coming back.

To a certain extent that happens with all kinds of successful writers and artists and celebrities, but there is also something about the form of memoir that creates an eerie reader space of intimacy that is only "real" in the space of the text.

People always say, 'How is it to be so successful?' I'm not successful yet. Richard Branson is successful. That's successful. Michael Jackson was successful. U2 was successful. I'm just a guy, doing okay. But I'm a happy guy doing okay.

You don't need to be a stereotypical basketball player to be successful. You can be yourself. You can kick it with artists, you can kick it with nerds.

[The people who run things] are so successful in the way they do it now. They could buy me off with a couple of vintage prints, they could have you do an ad, or give you a ribbon... In capitalist countries they reward artists because we're ineffectual.

Writers and musicians know well the importance of extensive reading for successful writing or extensive listening for musical composition. Likewise, visual artists... understand that successful artistic creativity depends upon extensive visual exposure.

I've had far more success than I ever expected. But I do think that a lot of successful artists have an aim to be successful, even if they don't outwardly sound like it. I never really expected success.

People who are artists professionally are not artists because they want to be artists; they have to be artists. They're compelled to get that creativity out and to share that with others.

Abstract expression is so solid, so successful and recognizable, but there's a mystery about the artists that goes into it, a fetishism about the artists themselves and who they were.

Success for an artist is completed work. Very successful artists complete a lot of work. It's that simple.

It's pretty much a given known fact in the industry that before I was successful, I wrote for other artists.

I think a lot of the more successful artists of our time basically have barracudas for managers

Independent content these days can be more successful than previously because of the power of social media. However, there are still systems in place to make sure independent artists don't get as far as signed ones.

In the world of comics, Jack Kirby and Will Eisner may have been more influential artists, but Joe Kubert was its most influential man. Even if he were to be remembered solely for his body of illustration work, he’d still be one of the greats, but by opening the Kubert School in 1976, he was able to personally mentor and educate literally thousands of successful artists who owe their careers to his teachings.

Artists look at the environment, and the best artists correctly diagnose the problem. I'm not saying artists can't be leaders, but that's not the job of art, to lead. Bob Marley, Nina Simone, Harry Belafonte - there are artists all through history who have become leaders, but that was already in them, nothing to do with their art.

People want to be successful, and they want to be acknowledged for what they do. Sometimes they make really great art and aren't. Historically, the best artists weren't. But their work survived.

The only artists I have ever known who are personally delightful are bad artists. Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are.

I collaborate with Tidal because they're for the artists - the up and coming artists and the O.G.s in the game. It's like a home, the only place we have for the artists to find support.

Once avant-garde artists receive official recognition, they start a double life. In one, they inspire younger artists to do more. In the other, they inspire a mass of imitators who make the work respectable and exclusionary. The artists and their art become intellectual brand names.

Sheer egoism... Writers share this characteristic with scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers, soldiers, successful businessmen - in short, with the whole top crust of humanity.

We get better product when the focus is on the fans and the artists - all artists; musical artists; singers, the graphic designers, the painters, the DJs, I mean everybody, the writers. We can't allow ourselves to feel as if we're not important in the equation when we are everything!

Bad artists ignore the darkness of human existence. Good artists often get stuck there. Great artists embrace the full catastrophe of our condition and find beyond it an even deeper truth of peace, healing, and redemption.

I know there's a difference between being successful and feeling successful. And if you ask me if I feel successful, the honest answer is 'not yet.'

I was worried that I, the artist Morimura, would have conflicts with the participating artists and develop a strenuous relationship with them. But the actual experience was completely the opposite. The artists accepted my requests rather positively, because it came from a fellow artist. I strongly feel that the fact that my being an artist avoided the usual curator vs artist tension, and led to creating a positive atmosphere as well as developing a solidarity amongst artists and building a community for artists.

Marlene Dumas is one of the two or three most successful female artists alive, if you judge by prices. I've never reviewed her work, because I find nothing in it to get excited about no matter how hard I look.

I'm not trying to sound mean spirited, but I honestly don't know of many successful musicians who get that excited about other current artists' music. You're either a music fan, or you're a working musician.

Only one percent of artists are really profitable and successful. Beyonce is one?tenth of one percent. When we talk about what she can do, ninety-nine percent of artists can't do that.

It's understandable that the music companies that are comprised of people that are successful by making good creative decisions - they have to decide which out of fifty artists is the next hot one, with no data to go from. It's an intuitive process, and that's what they do well when they're successful. They don't understand technology.

I've worked with jazz artists, country artists, classical artists, pop artists. I never wanted there to be categories, because when I was a kid there weren't.

What an artist does, is fail. Any reading of the literature, (I mean the literature of artistic creation), however summary, will persuade you instantly that the paradigmatic artistic experience is that of failure. The actualization fails to meet, equal, the intuition. There is something "out there" which cannot be brought "here". This is standard. I don't mean bad artists, I mean good artists. There is no such thing as a "successful artist" (except, of course, in worldly terms).

The best artists are people who don't consider themselves artists, and the people who do are usually the most pretentious and annoying. They've got their priorities wrong. They're just doing it to be artists rather than because they want to do it.

A lot of people don't do this. You can count on a couple of hands probably how many artists also produce and write, both for themselves and for others, and are able to be successful at both things.

There are dance artists, painting artists and writing artists. Authors are writing artists. You can practice art in whatever medium you choose, and words are mine.

The artists could be dead, but some of them are not so distant from us, and make us feel as if they are alive with us. Such artists are worth calling "contemporary artists".

The only thing all successful people have in common is that they're successful, so don't waste your time copying "the successful strategies" of others.

There are no guidelines for what happens when you get successful as an artist. My heroes were artists like Acconci, and he didn't make any money. That's what I thought success was.

I like the idea of the museum world and the university-academic situation where artists talk to each other or where artists or art students study with artists.

Was I a successful father? Maybe not. Was I a successful husband? Probably not. Was I a successful actor? Probably not.

A lot of artists still will not get that far. And get that far and be as successful. So, it's a great thing for me, and hopefully I can make it to number 10. And then I would want to start managing other artists, 'cause I think the best manager is an artist, his, or herself, that has been in the business and been successful and knows the ins and outs of the business.

Revolt is designed to be a home for the next generation of musical artists, and we are investing in the artists and fans of the future. Revolt is for artists, by artists. This won't just be the P. Diddy network.

Insecurity prevents young artists from 'flying' and older artists from being 'down to earth.' Young artists should work on their confidence and the older ones on their humility.

Some of the most successful artists are the weirdest ones - look at Lady Gaga. I've done shows with her and she's amazing.

I'm just hoping that, as more black artists take control of the narratives that are out there, more opportunities will come around for artists of colour. We want to make the same waves that the white artists do.