Business Interviews

“I remember driving in New York in 1976 and I put the brakes on quickly because there was the very, very first Vogue cover that I ever shot. Big, on a bus shelter! And I remember just pulling over and just staring at it. At that point it was a real dream to see one of your pictures there. I’d always dreamed of doing a Vogue cover!”

“When I was younger I used to have more anxiousness to obtain things. But there are moments in which you obtain those things and then you relax.”

“It's important for a novelist to use the imagination like a musician, a composer or a painter would, in a kind of non-logical way. I think it’s very important for me to not just become a kind of intellectual writer.”

“You can catch ideas at a deeper level when you start meditating. Intuition grows, and intuition is the number one tool for an artist – feeling and thinking combined. The ideas are flowing, and the feeling that you can get it to feel correct. You know what that is. It’s a knowingness that grows. It’s really beautiful.”

“You’ve got to actually write it. You’ve got to actually sit there and do it, it can’t just be about the experience. Lots of people have fantastic experiences in life, but don’t have any inclination to put pen to paper.”

“The journey is everything! It’s a cliché, but I have really felt it in my own life, in the 25 or 30 years I’ve been in this… The goal is the process, really enjoying the process.”

“I knew what felt instinctively right for me, and I pursued that throughout my entire career. It’s the way I live; it’s the way I work. Everything that I’ve done and everything that I have is an extension of my personal taste.”

“Art is something that you do – you can't not do it. If I made money doing it, I would do it; if I didn't make any money, I would do it.”

“One day, if you have a little bit of talent and a lot of hard work, you’re going to find out who you are.”

“The bottom line in the end is to grab the heart of the audience and talk to them directly and tell them: "I share with you my soul and my heart."”

“The entire aim of my work is to elevate the human spirit.”

“I’m using my skills to create architecture that serves humanity. I’m talking about creating space for you so that you can feel comfortable, space that supports your work and activity.”

“I just try to live my life and just be who I am. If people really accept me they have to accept me as I am, you know what I mean? My highs and my lows and my vulnerabilities… It's who I am as a human being.”

“My goal when I’m in front of an audience is to perform the piece and fill it with meaning. On stage, I concentrate on rationality and empathy, since the singer must feel a certain amount of emotion, but not too much.”

“Making a movie comes with a great deal of joy, an incredible amount of hard work and equal amounts of stress, pressure, fun, and anxiety. But ultimately it’s extremely rewarding! I have the best job in the world.”

“I do not consider architecture as art, nor do I consider architects to be artists. However, I do have a strong desire to improve the purity of my expression and put a strong message into my architecture so that I can call it art!”

“I always want to take a human portrait. My goal in life is always to enter into everything with great care and with great humanity.”

“I think a big part of writing comes out of an attempt to understand yourself. I just always felt whole when I was writing. I felt this kind of beautiful privacy that I never felt in any other way.”

“Filmmaking is never anything less than a beautiful gift. I've been doing this forever, and as hard as it may be, it's never let me down. I have such a will to make these movies!”

“There is something in leaving this place better than where you have left it, working on yourself, doing things with other people, there is something in that that feels right, deep in your core. I go with that.”

“Most people make art and movies as a job and if a lot of people go to see it they make money and that is their sign of success. I am not making judgment here, but their goal is strictly business-oriented. I don't do this as a business.”

“when we finally put a piece together for the first time, seeing it all together, when it actually works… The excitement in the room is something I’ll never forget. It feels like a very powerful moment to be part of.”

“Happiness for me is just being; just being at any given moment. If you are searching for happiness, you are not happy. It’s the pot at the end of the rainbow.”

“I live from my heart. I am not a cerebral person. I will never be. I am 55 years old. I will continue doing things the way I have done them my whole life.”

“I want to make classical instruments sound unexpected. Constructing it yourself means that you don’t need to do so much so that it sounds like yours. You know it’s the only one. It’s yours. You own the sound.”

“I think it’s really important to not be afraid of failure and to push yourself to try things and jump in the cold water.”

“Every time you hear a piece of music that you’ve written, you remember the joy of it. Even if you don’t remember exactly what the writing process was like, there’s a moment where you hear it and your heart is full. It’s a similar emotion like when you are in love with someone, you feel that internal joy.”

“I’ve been very fortunate, and I don’t know why, but my shoes don’t have a special time period. I don’t design them with that in mind but it happens: timelessness. I have been absolutely gifted by that.”

“It’s the rollercoaster ride of doing something creative: when it goes well and you enjoy the process then it’s a high and you just want to keep on doing it.”

“I consider myself a storyteller. I feel that is what good directors do, they are really just following criteria: is this a good story? Is this the story I want to tell? All we’re trying to do is the hard task of making interesting, thought-provoking films.”

“There's going to be a moment where your work challenges you, where you’re at your limit… But if that deep love is really there, you're not going to abandon it. You are going to give your all to it!”

“I’m surviving. I do everything I can to speak out and make sure that I keep my humanity.”

“We have such a short time on this earth, and when you give that opportunity to somebody younger, and they pass it on to the next generation… That’s real success.”

“As a photographer, as long as I remain truthful with myself in the transaction, as long as I maintain a level of empathy for my humanity in that process, then what is being translated back is honest and the transaction is not objectified.”

“The success of translating an idea into action is very often where the talent is to be found. If you can give a body to the idea, I think you are onto a very interesting process.”

“It’s still astounding to me that I have one Oscar, let alone two. Especially because it’s by-product of something that you love so much, it feels like that’s already the gift, that’s already the award.”

“I’m doing something that I love, and I consider that to be success. But if you think it’s gonna come fast or easy, then you probably are in for some rough times. You need to always be ready to throw things out and do it over again, and know that you love the process enough to be doing it repeatedly. Always be in love with the process and in love with your talent. And know that you’re going to keep doing it because it’s what you love doing.”

“For me, success is having integrity and really staying true to my own voice. When I was younger, maybe it was more about the big spaces and getting awards. But now I’m prioritizing more this idea of having a beautiful process.”

“To do something no one else has ever done, it’s satisfying, but the thing is nobody else is really playing the game of free solo climbing, so it's easy to win when no one else plays, you know?”

“I think the best you can do for yourself is let your subconscious drive you, instead of doing things because you want to achieve some sort of glory.”