96+ Rick Rubin Quotes for Success in Music, Art, and Life

Rick Rubin is an American record producer and music executive. He is the co-founder of Def Jam Recordings and has produced albums for artists such as Beastie Boys, Run-DMC, LL Cool J, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Johnny Cash. He is also the founder of American Recordings, which has released albums by Slayer, Danzig, and System of a Down. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Rick Rubin on creativity, life, producer.

Top 10 Rick Rubin Quotes

1. If we like what we are creating, we don’t have to know why.
2. There's just a natural human element to a great song that feels immediately satisfying. I like the song to create a mood.
3. On their deathbeds, people don’t think about their work or their life experiences or the items remaining on their to-do list. They think about love and family.
4. Art is choosing to do something skillfully, caring about the details, bringing all of yourself to make the finest work you can. It is beyond ego, vanity, self-glorification, and need for approval.
5. Find the sustainable rituals that best support your work.
6. Do what you can with what you have. Nothing more is needed.
7. At 15, I started listening to hard rock and heavy metal, but I would say it was more hard rock because I liked Kiss, Aerosmith, Ted Nugent, and eventually AC/DC.
8. Making the simple complicated is commonplace, Charles Mingus once said. Making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity.
9. The making of art is not a competitive act. Our work is representative of the self.
10. All that matters is that you are making something you love, to the best of your ability, here and now.

Rick Rubin Short Quotes

• Our point of view, not our drawing skills or musical virtuosity or ability to tell a story.
• In terms of priority, inspiration comes first. You come next. The audience comes last.
• Look for what you notice but no one else sees.
• Zoom in and obsess. Zoom out and observe. We get to choose.
• There’s a tremendous power in using the least amount of information to get a point across.
• When we’re making things we love, our mission is accomplished.
• Always remain open to turns and surprises along the way. Welcome the unexpected.
• Our path is to collaborate with what's happening. Not to fight it.
• For me, the Beatles are proof of the existence of God.
• People are willing to get short-term gains at the risk of long-term choices.

Rick Rubin Quotes About Creativity

Artists who are able to continually create great works throughout their lives often manage to preserve these childlike qualities. Practicing a way of being that allows you to see the world through uncorrupted, innocent eyes can free you to act in concert with the universe’s timetable. — Rick Rubin

The power of nature is what all art strives to be. The more we can get in tune with the harmony of the planet, the more our art can benefit from that relationship. — Rick Rubin

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

When it comes to the creative process, patience is accepting that the majority of the work we do is out of our control. — Rick Rubin

Creativity is not a rare ability. It is not difficult to access. Creativity is a fundamental aspect of being human. It’s our birthright. And it’s for all of us. — Rick Rubin

If you have an idea you’re excited about and you don’t bring it to life, it’s not uncommon for the idea to find its voice through another maker. This isn’t because the other artist stole your idea, but because the idea’s time has come. — Rick Rubin

The ability to look deeply is the root of creativity. — Rick Rubin

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

There’s an abundant reservoir of high-quality information in our subconscious, and finding ways to access it can spark new material to draw from. — Rick Rubin

Rick Rubin Quotes About Life

The goal is to commit to a structure that can take on a life of its own, instead of creating only one of the mood strikes. Or to start each day with the question of how and when you’re going to work on your art. — Rick Rubin

The universe is only as large as our perception of it. When we cultivate our awareness, we are expanding the universe. This expands the scope, not just of the material at our disposal to create from, but of the life we get to live. — Rick Rubin

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

Art is a reverberation of an impermanent life. — Rick Rubin

It's a big theme in my life, learning about myself and being a better person. I'm a work in progress; I have revelations every day. — Rick Rubin

Rick Rubin Quotes About Producer

I don't even know what a traditional producer is or does. I feel like the job is like being a coach, building good work habits and building trust. You want to get to a point where you can say anything and talk about anything. There needs to be a real connection. — Rick Rubin

I never made beats to make beats; I only made them when there was a record to make them for. That's one of the things that has changed in hip-hop that's made me like it less. It feels much more like it's a producer-driven medium, where there are all these tracks that are completely interchangeable. — Rick Rubin

Everything I do, whether it's producing or signing an artist, always starts with the songs. When I'm listening, I'm looking for a balance that you could see in anything. Whether it's a great painting or a building or a sunset. — Rick Rubin

Rick Rubin Quotes About Goal

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. Instead of sounding like others, value your own voice. Develop it. — Rick Rubin

I don't know what makes someone hip. The goal is to create the best work we can do with no limitation. — Rick Rubin

We’re not playing to win, we’re playing to play. And ultimately, playing is fun. Perfectionism gets in the way of fun. A more skillful goal might be to find comfort in the process. To make and put out successive works with ease. — Rick Rubin

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

Rick Rubin Quotes About Work

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

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

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

If you know what you want to do and you do it, that’s the work of a craftsman. If you begin with a question and use it to guide an adventure of discovery, that’s the work of the artist. — Rick Rubin

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

I think with certain artists you want to hear their album... and then there are other artists who I like where maybe it's more about the single. I don't think there is going to be one way that everything works. — Rick Rubin

We’re all different and we’re all imperfect, and the imperfections are what makes each of us and our work interesting. — Rick Rubin

I've always been an outsider. When I did magic, I was the only kid. When I worked with Johnny Cash, I was completely out of place in Nashville. And when I started Def Jam, I was the only white guy in the hip-hop world. — Rick Rubin

I really like the challenge of working with different kinds of music. I feel like my role is really like a coach, so I feel like I can do my job for different kinds of music that may not necessarily be what I listen to. — Rick Rubin

I played more of an advisory role with Public Enemy. I really trusted them to make the music that they wanted to make, and the way The Bomb Squad worked with the... they created their whole own world of music. — Rick Rubin

Rick Rubin Famous Quotes And Sayings

Oscar Wilde said that some things are too important to be taken seriously. Art is one of those things. Setting the bar low, especially to get started, frees you to play, explore, and test without attachment to results. — Rick Rubin

How do we pick up on a signal that can neither be heard nor be defined? The answer is not to look for it. Nor do we attempt to predict or analyze our way into it. Instead, we create an open space that allows it. A space so free of the normal overpacked condition of our minds that it functions as a vacuum. Drawing down the ideas that the universe is making available. — Rick Rubin

Usually when I start a new project there's a fear of the unknown; maybe it's a band I've never been in the studio with before. People are so different. It's almost like you need to go through the process, discover and unlock what it is that makes that band that band. And a lot of times they don't know it. — Rick Rubin

We are all antennae for creative thought. Some transmissions come on strong, others are more faint. If your antenna isn’t sensitively tuned, you’re likely to lose the data in the noise. Particularly since the signals coming through are often more subtle than the content we collect through sensory awareness. They are energetic more than tactile, intuitively perceived more than consciously recorded. — Rick Rubin

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

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

The act of creation is an attempt to enter a mysterious realm. A longing to transcend. What we create allows us to share glimpses of an inner landscape, one that is beyond our understanding. Art is our portal to the unseen world. — Rick Rubin

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

The magic is not in the analyzing or the understanding. The magic lives in the wonder of what we do not know. — Rick Rubin

We are required to believe in something that doesn’t exist in order to allow it to come into being. — Rick Rubin

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

When you're vegan, you spend your time chasing protein, and you're eating food that's way too high in carbs. I could never catch up on protein. — Rick Rubin

I always feel like there's something magic in recording studios. There's a reason good music continues to be made in them. — Rick Rubin

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

Usually, I’ll give them homework—a small, doable task. I’ll give you an example. There was an artist I was working with recently who hadn’t made an album in a long time, and he was struggling with finishing anything. He just had this version of a writer’s block. But I would give him very doable homework assignments that almost seemed like a joke. ‘Tonight, I want you to write one word in this song that needs five lines, that you can’t finish. I just want one word that you like by tomorrow. Do you think that you could come up with one word? — Rick Rubin

The magic is not in the analyzing or the understanding. The magic lives in the wonder of what we do not know. The unseen world is boundless. — Rick Rubin

From the time I was 9 years old, I loved magic. I was an only child, and I think that had a big impact on me. I always had grown-up friends even though I was a little kid. I would take the train from Lido Beach into Manhattan, and I'd hang out in magic shops. — Rick Rubin

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

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

I was the only punk rocker at my high school. And there were at least a handful of black kids who liked hip-hop. Both were kind of the new music of the day, and it was lonely being the only punk. — Rick Rubin

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

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

I never really think so much about commercial success; I usually just think about records that move me, and 'Baby Got Back' was one that moved me. — Rick Rubin

Awareness is not a state you force. There is little effort involved, though persistence is key. It’s something you actively allow to happen. It is a presence with, and acceptance of, what is happening in the eternal now. — Rick Rubin

Our life’s work is far greater than any individual container. The works we do are at most chapters. There will always be a new chapter, and another after that. Though some might be better than others, that is not our concern. Our objective is to be free to close one chapter and move on to the next, and to continue that process for as long as it pleases us. — Rick Rubin

In nature, some seeds lie dormant in anticipation of the season most conducive to their growth. This is true of art as well. There are ideas whose time has not yet come. Or perhaps their time has come, but you are not yet ready to engage with them. Other times, developing a different seed may shed light on a dormant one. — Rick Rubin

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

To live as an artist is a way of being in the world. A way of perceiving. A practice of paying attention. — Rick Rubin

Without the spiritual component, the artist works with a crucial disadvantage. The spiritual world provides a sense of wonder and a degree of open-mindedness not always found within the confines of science. The world of reason can be narrow and filled with dead ends, while a spiritual viewpoint is limitless and invites fantastic possibilities. The unseen world is boundless. — Rick Rubin

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

I really loved crunk. I loved the extreme nature of it, how repetitious it was, and how these basic, angry chants would just be repeated over and over again. — Rick Rubin

Of all the great works that we can experience, nature is the most absolute and enduring. We can witness it change through the seasons. We can see it in the mountains, the oceans, the deserts, and the forest. We can watch the changes of the moon each night, and the relationship between the moon and the stars. — Rick Rubin

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

It’s helpful to turn those voices down so you can hear the chimes of the cosmic clock ring, reminding you it’s time. Your time to participate. — Rick Rubin

I'm just trying to make my favorite music. That's how I work; I just do things based on the way they feel to me. I want to be touched by the music I'm making. Luckily, other people have shared that response to my work over the years. — Rick Rubin

I never had the feeling I ever had to make a dime doing anything. — Rick Rubin

The technology is getting better. There will be a day when you'll be able to hear any music you want, anywhere you are, on demand, in a quality that is as good as when it was made. Things are moving in that direction. — Rick Rubin

I guess edgy things tend to get my attention. — Rick Rubin

Well I listened to mostly rock music, and I felt like hip hop was like an extension of rock music when it was done well. So energetically, again I felt like it was in line with punk rock and maybe hard rock, more than it was in line with R&B, which I never really liked. — Rick Rubin

I've gotten to work with amazing people. I would say usually we get to a point before we get into the studio where there isn't that sense of anxiety or nervousness of who they are because I don't think it would be as productive in the studio if that was the case. But maybe meeting someone like Neil Young for the first time made me anxious. — Rick Rubin

In between 15 and 20 - probably at around 17 - my interests switched from hard rock to punk rock. And then by 20 they were circling out of punk rock back into Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, the stuff that I didnt get to when I was younger. — Rick Rubin

I like things that are unique and extreme. — Rick Rubin

I never decide if an idea is good or bad until I try it. So much of what gets in the way of things being good is thinking that we know. And the more that we can remove any baggage we're carrying with us, and just be in the moment, use our ears, and pay attention to what's happening, and just listen to the inner voice that directs us, the better. — Rick Rubin

It's cool that you found somebody that you trust. — Rick Rubin

Everything happens kind of the way it's supposed to happen, and we just watch it unfold. And you can't control it. Looking back, you can't say, "I should've..." You didn't, and had you, the outcome would have been different. — Rick Rubin

Life Lessons by Rick Rubin

1. Rick Rubin's success demonstrates that it is possible to achieve success through hard work and dedication.
2. He also shows that taking risks and trying new things can lead to great rewards.
3. Finally, his work highlights the importance of collaboration and working with other talented people in order to achieve success.