Ayn Rand Quotes

The overall commentary on what I'm doing is saying, 'Hey look! I get to create whatever persona I want to, and it's all up to me. And the truth is, we are all - basically the universe - pretending to be humans for a brief moment of time. With a little self-induced amnesia.

The colour blue - that is my colour - and the colour blue means you have left the drabness of day-to-day reality to be transported into - not a world of fantasy, it’s not a world of fantasy - but a world of freedom where you can say what you like and what you don’t like. This has been expressed forever by the colour blue, which is really sky blue.

People like to come up to me and tell me that I’ve got nice ink. Except these tattoos aren’t just decorations. They are declarations. Every tattoo I have tells its own story about who I am. Drug-free. Honor. And a war against the system.

There are jobs that can be done equally well by men or by women and that finally you can't see a difference. But from the moment that you involve yourself fully in writing a novel, for example, or an essay, then you are involved as a woman, in the same way that you can't deny your nationality - you are French, you are a man, you are a woman... all this passes into the writing.

My art is rooted in a single reflection: why am I not as others are? ... my art gives meaning to my life.

I had to make a confession of faith in stone. That was the beginning of the tower, the house I built for myself at Bollingen.

There's me in every character I put on the pages.

Music is a reflection of who you are.

I am what I am again: a writer. I have metabolized the injury into art.

That is my reality. It's that important to nurture and foster my own creativity. There are plenty of birthday parties I haven't been able to go to, weddings I haven't been able to go to because I've been working. Those are things that have not been easy to give up, but at the same time, it is my reality. It's my responsibility.

We all have to fight to maintain our unique style and taste in a world that would have us conform.

The self is our life's goal, for it is the completest expression of that fateful combination we call individuality.

I know people want me to sort of defend myself, to sit here and be like, 'I'm a boy, but I wear makeup sometimes.' But, you know, to me, it doesn't really matter. I don't really have that sort of strong gender identity-I identify as what I am. The fact that people are using it for creative or marketing purposes, it's just kind of like having a skill and using it to earn money.

Once you're away from music, I realize that's as intrinsic to who I am as anything else. That's the part that takes me out of my brain.

We all can be only who we are, no more, no less.

I have the best job in the world. I'm able to express myself, and people attach themselves to it if they identify with it. Music certainly is a driving force in my life. There's not a moment where I'm not in it.

Self-portraits are a way of revealing something about oneself.

We cannot be all the writers all the time. We can only be who we are. Which leads me to my second point: writers do not write what they want, they write what they can.

Where am I? Who am I? How did I come to be here? What is this thing called the world? How did I come into the world? Why was I not consulted? And If I am compelled to take part in it, where is the director? I want to see him.

What is the purpose of writing? For me personally, it is really to explain the mystery of life, and the mystery of life includes, of course, the personal, the political, the forces that make us what we are while there's another force from inside battling to make us something else.

Reality must be expressed by a physical symbol.

I am a creature of my pen. My pen is the best of me.

When you get into making movies, then the physical mundane reality of life must be presented. But in comics you can jack it up and work in shorthand.

[Poetry is] a way of coming to grips with reality . . . a way of discovery and definition. It is a way of solving for the unknowns.

People are expecting me to be a certain way all the time. It's not like if I come in here with a totally different personality and right before the camera starts they see this new character. It confuses everything. Life has a consensus reality to it and if you use that to your advantage it makes it much easier.