Pablo Picasso on how hard it is to work as a creative individual and yet how important it is to keep at it – and not give in to having a second, more financially stable career too:

When you have something to say, to express, any submission becomes unbearable in the long run. One must have the courage of one’s vocation and the courage to make a living from one’s vocation. The “second career” is an illusion! I was often broke too, and I always resisted any temptation to live any other way than from my painting… In the beginning, I did not sell at a high price, but I sold. My drawings, my canvases went. That’s what counts.

Well, success is an important thing! It’s often been said that an artist ought to work for himself, for the “love of art,” that he ought to have contempt for success. Untrue! An artist needs success. And not only to live off it, but especially to produce his body of work. Even a rich painter has to have success. Few people understand anything about art, and not everyone is sensitive to painting. Most judge the world of art by success. Why, then,leave success to “best-selling painters”? Every generation has its own. But where is it written that success must always go to those who cater to the public’s taste? For myself, I wanted to prove that you can have success in spite of everyone, without compromise.

Do you know what? It’s the success I had when I was young that became my wall of protection. The blue period, the rose period, they were screens that shielded me. Picasso on Success and Why You Should Never Compromise in Your Art – Maria Popova, Brainpickings

Don’t just read more in the Brainpickings article, go on to read more in the book it features: Conversations with Picasso by Brassaï (UK edition, US edition). The conversations are absorbing but there’s also the engaging and encouraging story of how they came to happen at all.