Patti Smith (& Robert Mapplethorpe) // "It's a dark period now because everyone is beguiled by fame... I think that true artists just have to keep doing their work, keep struggling, and keep hold of their vision. Because being a true artist is its own reward. If that's what you are, then you're always that. You could be locked away in a prison with no way at all to communicate what's in there, but you're still an artist. The imagination and the ability to transform is what makes one an artist. So young artists who feel overwhelmed by everything have to almost downscale. They have to go all the way to this kernel and believe in themselves, and that's what Robert gave me. He believed in that kernel I had, you know, with absolute unconditional belief. And if you believe it, you'll have that your whole life, through the worst times."
Mikhail Baryshnikov // "When I see people on the street, I look at how they walk. It's like a signature, a fingerprint."
Hermann Hesse // "I live in my dreams...that's what you sense. Other people live in dreams, but not in their own. That's the difference."
Philippe Petit // "I loved those towers and I knew I had to conquer them, if only to inspire people. It was a time in our history when things were not looking so good. And I wanted people to be able to look at the sky again."
Björk // "Create a paradise anywhere you go."
John Lennon // "You're all geniuses and you're all beautiful. You don't need anyone to tell you who you are. You are what you are."
Leonard Cohen // "I feel most comfortable and most abundant when things are very simple and I know where everything is and there’s nothing around that I don’t need."
Salvador Dali // "I cannot understand why human beings should be so little individualized, why they should behave with such great collective uniformity."
Stanley Kubrick // "I've got a particular weakness for criminals and artists. Neither takes life as it is."
Maya Angelou // "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."
Johnny Cash // "This morning, with her, having coffee."
Chuck Close // "The advice I like to give...is to not wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself...if you just get to work, something will occur to you."
