“An artist is a dreamer consenting to dream of the actual world.”

As an artist, you are always striving toward an ultimate achievement but never seem to reach it. You shoot a film, and the result could have always been better. You try again, and fail once more. In some ways I find it enjoyable. You never lose sight of your goal. I don’t do my job to make money or to break box office records, I simply try things out. What would happen if I were to achieve perfection at some point? What would I do then?

The French make two mistakes about me. They think I'm an intellectual because I wear these glasses and they think I'm an artist because my films lose money.

People think I'm an artist because my films lose money.

I do pinch myself, like when shows in non-English speaking countries are sold out, and people are singing my lyrics. I don't think I'll ever lose that; I'm always appreciative every day of the support I have as an artist, because I'm not a commercial artist.

“Savages and modern artists are alike strangely driven to create something uglier than themselves. but the artists find it harder.”

“The artistic temperament is a disease that afflicts amateurs.” 

When I'm dead, I want to be remembered as a musician of some worth and substance.

The most valuable thing a teacher can impart to children is not knowledge and understanding per se but a longing for knowledge and understanding, and an appreciation for intellectual values, whether they be artistic, scientific, or moral.

The satisfaction of physical needs is indeed the indispensable precondition of a satisfactory existence, but in itself it is not enough. In order to be content, men must also have the possibility of developing their intellectual and artistic powers to whatever extent accords with their personal characteristics and abilities.

Beauty unites all things, links together flower and star, with chains more certain than those of reason. The poet, the artist, thus finds the clue which guides them in their pilgrimage throughout the world.

A people do not throw their geniuses away. And if they are thrown away, it is our duty as artists and as witnesses for the future to collect them again for the sake of our children and, if necessary, bone by bone.

Poetry moves heaven and earth.