Top 100 Rick Rubin Quotes (2026 Update)
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51. “I was very lucky. My neck hurt and I went to my doctor, who was kind of hip, and he said it was stress-caused and that I needed to learn how to meditate. So I learned how to do Transcendental Meditation.”

— Rick Rubin

52. “I don’t know what makes someone hip. The goal is artist achievement and the best work we can do with no limitation.”

— Rick Rubin

53. “One of the greatest rewards of making art is our ability to share it. Even if there is no audience to receive it, we build the muscle of making something and putting it out into the world. Finishing our work is a good habit to develop. It boosts confidence. Despite our insecurities, the more times we can bring ourselves to release our work, the less weight insecurity has.”

— Rick Rubin

54. “Part of the process of letting go is releasing any thoughts of how you or your piece will be received. When making art, the audience comes last. Let’s not consider how a piece will be received or a release strategy until the work is finished and we love it.”

— Rick Rubin

55. “Rules direct us to average behaviors. If we’re aiming to create works that are exceptional, most rules don’t apply. Average is nothing to aspire to. The goal is not to fit in. If anything, it’s to amplify the differences, what doesn’t fit, the special characteristics unique to how you see the world.”

— Rick Rubin

56. “To vary your inspiration, consider varying your inputs. Turn the sound off to watch a film, listen to the same song on repeat, read only the first word of each sentence in a short story, arrange stones by size or color, learn to lucid dream. Break habits. Look for differences. Notice connections.”

— Rick Rubin

57. “If you make the choice of reading classic literature every day for a year, rather than reading the news, by the end of that time period you’ll have a more honed sensitivity for recognizing greatness from the books than from the media.”

— Rick Rubin

58. “Pay particular attention to the moments that take your breath away – a beautiful sunset, an unusual eye color, a moving piece of music, the elegant design of a complex machine.”

— Rick Rubin

59. “Good habits create good art. The way we do anything is the way we do everything. Treat each choice you make, each action you take, each word you speak with skillful care. The goal is to live your life in the service of art.”

— Rick Rubin

60. “As artists, we seek to restore our childlike perception: a more innocent state of wonder and appreciation not tethered to utility or survival.”

— Rick Rubin

61. “Expressing oneself in the world and creativity are the same. It may not be possible to know who you are without somehow expressing it.”

— Rick Rubin

62. “When we miss it, it really does pass us by. Tomorrow presents another opportunity for awareness, but it’s never an opportunity for the same awareness.”

— Rick Rubin

63. “The reason to make art is to innovate and self-express, show something new, share what’s inside, and communicate your singular perspective.”

— Rick Rubin

64. “The great artists throughout history are the ones able to maintain this childlike enthusiasm and exuberance naturally. Just as an infant is selfish, they’re protective of their art in a way that’s not always cooperative. Their needs as a creator come first. Often at the expense of their personal lives and relationships.”

— Rick Rubin

65. “Living life as an artist is a practice. You are either engaging in the practice or you’re not. It makes no sense to say you’re not good at it. It’s like saying, “I’m not good at being a monk.” You are either living as a monk or you’re not. We tend to think of the artist’s work as the output. The real work of the artist is a way of being in the world.”

— Rick Rubin

66. “When you believe the work before you is the single piece that will forever define you, it’s difficult to let go. The urge for perfection is overwhelming. It’s too much. We are frozen, and sometimes ends up convincing ourselves that discarding the entire work is the only way to move forward.”

— Rick Rubin

67. “Making the simple complicated is commonplace,” Charles Mingus once said. “Making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity.”

— Rick Rubin

68. “If the artist is happy with the work they’re creating and the viewer is enlivened by the work they’re experiencing, it doesn’t matter if they see it in the same way.”

— Rick Rubin

69. “The best artists tend to be the ones with the most sensitive antennae to draw in the energy resonating at a particular moment. Many great artists first develop sensitive antennae not to create art but to protect themselves. They have to protect themselves because everything hurts more. They feel everything more deeply.”

— Rick Rubin

70. “Consider how different your experience of the world might be if you engaged in every activity with the attention you might give to landing a plane.”

— Rick Rubin

71. “Our point of view, not our drawing skills or musical virtuosity or ability to tell a story.”

— Rick Rubin

72. “If we like what we are creating, we don’t have to know why.”

— Rick Rubin

73. “When we’re making things we love, our mission is accomplished.”

— Rick Rubin

74. “To create is to bring something into existence that wasn’t there before. It could be a conversation, the solution to a problem, a note to a friend, the rearrangement of furniture in a room, a new route home to avoid a traffic jam.”

— Rick Rubin

75. “There’s a reason we are drawn to gazing at the ocean. It is said the ocean provides a closer reflection of who we are than any mirror.”

— Rick Rubin

76. “The goal of art isn’t to attain perfection. The goal is to share who we are. And how we see the world.”

— Rick Rubin

77. “If you’ve truly created an innovative work, it’s likely to alienate as many people as it attracts. The best art divides the audience. If everyone likes it, you probably haven’t gone far enough.”

— Rick Rubin

78. “The point Wooden was making was that creating effective habits, down to the smallest detail, is what makes the difference between winning and losing games. Each habit might seem small, but added together, they have an exponential effect on performance. Just one habit, at the top of any field, can be enough to give an edge over the competition.”

— Rick Rubin

79. “Talent is the ability to let ideas manifest themselves through you.”

— Rick Rubin

80. “Yet an album is only a diary entry of a moment of time, a snapshot reflection of who the artist is for that period. And no one diary entry is our life story.”

— Rick Rubin

81. “The synergy of a group is as important – if not more important – than the talent of the individuals.”

— Rick Rubin

82. “For the lungs to draw in air, they must first be emptied. For the mind to draw inspiration, it wants space to welcome the new. The universe seeks balance. Through this absence, you are inviting energy in.”

— Rick Rubin

83. “Intention is all there is. The work is just a reminder. Rules A rule is any guiding principle or creative criterion.”

— Rick Rubin

84. “Failure is the information you need to get where you’re going.”

— Rick Rubin

85. “Think to yourself: I’m just here to create.”

— Rick Rubin

86. “If someone chooses to share feedback, listen to understand the person, not the work. People will tell you more about themselves than about the art when giving feedback. We each see a unique world. Ocassionally, a comment will strike home. It will resonate with something we feel, either in our awareness or just behind it, and we may discover room for improvement.”

— Rick Rubin

87. “This practice – of never assuming an experience you have is the whole story – will support you in a life of open possibility and equanimity. When we obsessively focus on these events, they may appear catastrophic. But they’re just a small aspect of a larger life, and the further you zoom back, the smaller each experience becomes. Zoom in and obsess. Zoom out and observe. We get to choose.”

— Rick Rubin

88. “Ultimately, your desire to create must be greater than your fear of it.”

— Rick Rubin

89. “Releasing a work into the world becomes easier when we remember that each piece can never be a total reflection of us, only a reflection of who we are in this moment.”

— Rick Rubin

90. “The best work is the work you are excited about.”

— Rick Rubin

91. “Living in discovery is at all times preferable to living through assumptions.”

— Rick Rubin

92. “Art is above and beyond judgment. It either speaks to you or it doesn’t. The artist’s only responsibility is to the work itself. There are no other requirements. You’re free to create what you will.”

— Rick Rubin

93. “However you frame yourself as an artist, the frame is too small.”

— Rick Rubin

94. “Turning something from an idea into a reality can make it seem smaller. It changes from unearthly to earthly. The imagination has no limits. The physical world does. The work exists in both.”

— Rick Rubin

95. “One thing I learned through having spellcheck is that I regularly make up words. I’ll type a word and then the computer will tell me it doesn’t exist. Since it sounds like what I’m aiming to say, I sometimes decide to use it anyway. I know what it means, and perhaps the reader will understand the meaning better than if I used an actual word.”

— Rick Rubin

96. “In its rough form, an early iteration of a work may hold an extraordinary magic. Above all this is to be protected. When working alongside others, keep the oath front of mind.”

— Rick Rubin

97. “Create an environment where you’re free to express what you’re afraid to express.”

— Rick Rubin

98. “Any framework, method, or label you impose on yourself is just as likely to be a limitation as an opening.”

— Rick Rubin

99. “The artist actively works to experience life slowly, and then to re-experience the same thing anew. To read slowly, and to read and read again.”

— Rick Rubin

100. “Sometimes the most valuable touch a collaborator can have is no touch at all.”

— Rick Rubin