Creativity Quote by Van Morrison

Van Morrison’s line lands like a shrug with teeth: a refusal that’s less manifesto than muscle memory. “I never bought” is doing double duty. It’s about money, sure, but it’s also about belief. He’s framing “the commercial thing” as a product you’re pressured to purchase with your identity, your time, your sound. The phrase “at any stage of the game” widens the claim from a youthful pose to a lifetime stance, and the casual idiom “the game” hints at an industry built on strategy, gatekeepers, and winning - a world he insists he’s been adjacent to, not owned by.

The subtext is the old rock-and-soul bargain: authenticity versus reach. Morrison isn’t just rejecting pop polish; he’s rejecting the idea that art should be legible to market research. It’s a defensive line, too, because his career has always invited the accusation that he’s difficult, prickly, uncooperative with promotion. By casting commerciality as a “thing” others “buy,” he shifts the burden: if you want him to play along, you’re the one asking for a transaction.

Context matters. Morrison came up when radio formats hardened, when labels increasingly demanded hits, and when “selling out” became a moral category in rock culture. His catalog - restless, genre-blending, often willfully untrendy - backs up the posture. The quote works because it isn’t romantic; it’s curt. It suggests an artist who doesn’t want to be inspirational, just left alone to make the work.