Edward Albee Quotes

As an actor, I think it is my responsibility to hold a mirror to the society.

Those lucky enough to qualify as "intellectuals" have their own special responsibilities, deriving from their good fortune. Among these is the task that [Edward] Said describes, surely an important one.

With 'Arrested Development,' we tried showing the deep disdain that connects a family. We wanted to hold up a mirror to American society. And, just as predicted, America looked away.

I don't intend to simply go away and write my plays and be a good boy. I intend to remain an independent and political intelligence in my own right.

For if you do, then shouldn't we blame the whole fraternity system? And if the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn't this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? I put it to you, Greg - isn't this an indictment of our entire American society?

I would say that no film is apolitical. There are politics in all films. Any film that is anchored in a society, any film that deals with humanity is necessarily political.

I don't have a constituency, and I'm not autobiographical in any way. I write these deeply moral books in a country which would prefer irony to anything with a moral tone.

I think comedians have a function in society, which is to make fun of our icons.

Ever since Romanticism, an oppositional mode, artists have the right, and indeed the duty, to attack social convention. But it is ridiculous and in fact self-infantilizing for them to expect to be financially supported by the general public whom they are insulting.

I think the problems with comedians that are political, and there are some brilliant ones, are the ones that offer no solutions. Not that there's a moral obligation for a comic to fix things, but I like to see a comic that's upset about something and offer a solution. It can be a funny solution. I like to see the thought process.

We didn't start out to make a protest record at all. That would have been too shallow. As usual, it was simply a case of absorbing what's going on around us.

Let us admit that most of us writers feel an essential aversion to politics. By taking such a position, however, we accept the perverted principle of specialization, according to which some are paid to write about the horrors of the world and human responsibility and others to deal with those horrors and bear the human responsibility for them

Hip Hop emerged fearlessly and unappoligeticly reflecting our society.

One of the strongest forms of rhetoric in our society is the rhetoric of blame.

'Dear Society' really is my letter to society where I express the anguish I've been caused from such an image-based industry and culture we live in.

Satire is born of the cities it denounces.

Expressing criticism of society is not being a grouch.

All serious art, music, literature is a critical act. It is so, firstly, in the sense of Matthew Arnold's phrase: "a criticism of life." Be it realistic, fantastic, Utopian or satiric, the construct of the artist is a counter-statement to the world.

Mixing pop and politics he asks me what the use is / I offer him embarrassment and my usual excuses.

Science fiction is a great way to pretend you are writing about the future when in reality you are attacking the recent past and the present. You can criticize communists, racists, fascists or any other clear and present danger, and they can't imagine you are writing about them.

what society requires from art ... is that it function as an early warning system.

The whole concept of this band is to present the ugly truth about society - warts and all, and let the chips fall where they may.

Every single bit of entertainment is escapism. It's because you are saying, "Let's see what this other person's life is like." And also it's beyond escapism, its entertainment and art as such can elevate the species. The entertainer supposedly is the muse. They're the ones who tell you what is wrong with society in a humorous way. They're the ones who do an expose about this or a documentary about that about the injustice of this. So it can be a very powerful medium.

How can you be an artist and not reflect the times?

All writers who can claim to be called 'living' must be political in a sense. They must have what the Quakers call a concern to understand what is happening in the world, and must engage themselves, in their writing, to promote no comfortable lies, of the sort which people will pay well to be told rather than the truth.