The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art's audience. Art has increasingly become the concern of the artist and the bafflement of the public.

Being an artist means ceasing to take seriously that very serious person we are when we are not an artist.

Paul is a very creative artist but I'm more that thorough, meticulous, disciplined nut.

But I'm not an artist. Maybe an artist with a small a.

So I went out and bought myself a copy of the Writer and Artist Yearbook, bought lots of magazines and got on the phone and talked to editors about ideas for stories. Pretty soon I found myself hired to do interviews and articles and went off and did them.

A record deal doesn't make you an artist; you make yourself an artist.

What I've discovered is that in art, as in music, there's a lot of truth-and then there's a lie. The artist is essentially creating his work to make this lie a truth, but he slides it in amongst all the others. The tiny little lie is the moment I live for, my moment. It's the moment that the audience falls in love.

If you only believe that you're an artist when you have a big advance in your pocket and a single coming out, I would say that's quite soulless. You have to have a sense of your own greatness and your own ability from a very deep place inside you. I am the one with the litmus test in my hands of what people need to hear next.

What is it they want from the man that they didn't get from the work? What do they expect? What is there left when he's done with his work, what's any artist but the dregs of his work, the human shambles that follows it around?

One thing that really appeals to me is this idea of music being a living thing that has an evolution that, in a way, enables the artist to sell a process rather than a piece of product.

I think another thing is that we don't really want exclusivity. We accept that it is in the artist's interest to be on sale in every place where they sell music.

So it's hard to be an artist and be true to the reality of the world you want to create and also make it entertaining and successful financially.

A designer is an emerging synthesis of artist, inventor, mechanic, objective economist and evolutionary strategist.

Yeah, I really like being alive. But I definitely don't have any intentions as an artist.

The artist in me cries out for design.