Well, to me, the tensile ...

Well, to me, the tensile strength and the very definition of an artist is something that I would place at the top of a vertical hierarchy. To be an artist is to suffer and to lead a life without shelter. It takes a great amount of daring-do, self reinvention, imagination, familial loyalty, sacrifice, economic uncertainty, and the right to be wrong, the right to fail in order to achieve something of noticeable value.
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 Van Dyke Parks

Quotes from the same author

You know, any sane magician would never reveal his method of deception. And I don't think that a sensible musician would either.
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 Van Dyke Parks
I notice that so many of my peers, aging ingénues, rock stars, are moving along in life into their wrinkles with an adoring audience that's aging as well, and the plain truth is that I wasn't condemned by that because I've never had to be somebody to do something. I don't have a five year-plan. I just hope the phone will ring and it will bring an opportunity to dominate my life.
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 Van Dyke Parks
The older I get, the better I was.
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 Van Dyke Parks