Martin Firrell Quotes

Art should help you to navigate the real challenges of being a human being.

The purpose of art is to accumulate the human within the human being.

It is the mission of art to remind man from time to time that he is human, and the time is ripe, just now, today, for such a reminder.

I think that's what all art is for - for people to express what it is to be human. That's the purpose of it.

Art is not an end in itself, but a means of addressing humanity.

When you start to think of the arts as not this thing that is going to get you somewhere in terms of becoming an artist or becoming famous or whatever it is that people do, but rather a way of making being in the world not just bearable, but fascinating, then it starts to get interesting again.

I think that movies can help guide us through those experiences [the problems that are happening in our daily lives, the stresses between countries, the economy and global warming]. I think all art tries to grapple with, redefine, come to terms with, express what's happening now when it's working. You can be entertained, but you can also be stimulated to think about things.

All art is propaganda...I do not care a damn, for any art that is not used for propaganda.

What do you think an artist is? ...he is a political being, constantly aware of the heart breaking, passionate, or delightful things that happen in the world, shaping himself completely in their image. Painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war.

I try to write relevant songs about life and whatever I'm going through and whatever people are going through.

I just think that fiction that isn't exploring what it means to be human today isn't art.

My idea about the role of artists is to get people to look at things in a way that's different than the way they normally would if they are being told how to think, what to do. I think when people receive information through art, they are more open-minded.

Art is the means by which we communicate what it feels like to be alive.

Humanity looks to works of art to shed light upon its path and its destiny.

I still hope that more people can create art, even though artistic genres may never be the most popular or money-making genres. But the thing is, I think art is more long-lasting. It stays in people, and it changes them.

The role of art is to make a world which can be inhabited.

Art is supposed to spark conversation and make people think.

I wish to boast that Pygmalion has been an extremely successful play all over Europe and North America as well as at home. It is so intensely and deliberately didactic, and its subject is esteemed so dry, that I delight in throwing it at the heads of the wiseacres who repeat the parrot cry that art should never be didactic. It goes to prove my contention that art should never be anything else.

If we can't, as artists, improve on real life, we should put down our pencils and go bake bread.

Art does not exist only to entertain, but also to challenge one to think, to provoke, even to disturb, in a constant search for truth.

I think art is about human existence. Almost by default I'm expressing my experiences as a human.

We have to make myths of our lives, the point being that if we do, then every grief or inexplicable seizure by weather, woe, or work can-if we discipline ourselves and think hard enough-be turned to account, be made to yield further insight into what it is to be alive, to be a human being.

Art isn't supposed to change the world, but it can.

I believe the experiences of life are more important than any film you make.

That's the real power of art, I think. Not to chide but to provoke challenge. Otherwise why bother?