Edwidge Danticat Quotes

Censorship is the thing that stops you doing what you want to do, and what writers want to talk about is what they do, not what stops them doing it.

I'm not nearly as outrageously brave as many of my rascals that I write. But I think the rascal spirit must reside in me somewhere.

I wish that my life could be like the movies, like 'Bonnie and Clyde' or 'The Hunger' or 'Harold and Maude.' And... it can be! It maybe just takes somebody else who is as fearless as you. It takes a person who will not hesitate.

I was desperate for new material, so anything I can write a joke about that works is in the act. No matter who it offends, or who it bothers - doesn't matter if its something my wife hates.

It's not that, living in Pakistan, I feel an enormous constraint on how I can write and what I can say; rather, I recognize that one has to navigate these things... Am I aware of things that one could say that would be risky or that could be dangerous? Certainly I'm aware of those things.

Because I didn't think anyone would actually listen to my music, I thought I could say whatever I wanted.

It's true that the human body is more vulnerable than the products of the human mind. We need to protect artists and journalists people to allow them to work.

If I have something I want to say that is too difficult for adults to swallow, then I will write it in a book for children.

Writers cannot let themselves be servants of the official mythology. They have to, whatever the cost, say what truth they have to say.

It's like they want to shut rappers down. They want to silence us. The Supreme Court says it's OK for a white man to burn a cross in public. But nobody wants a black man to write a record about a cop killer.

It has forever been thus: So long as men write what they think, then all of the other freedoms - all of them - may remain intact. And it is then that writing becomes a weapon of truth, an article of faith, an act of courage.

When people censor themselves they're just as likely to get rid of the good bits as the bad bits.

I thought [books ban] was crazy. Really my thoughts were "This is America, we don't do this here" but of course I know a lot better now. And I wasn't the only one. Norma Klein was writing at the same time. Her books were going. So many of us. When you say to me, no you can't do this I say, oh yes I can.

I've failed a million times on stage. I've listened to notes that I knew weren't right. I've pitched ideas and let other people change them, knowing that it was the wrong choice. The question you have to ask yourself is: How do you want to fail? Do you want to fail in a way that feels like it respects your tastes and value system?

People should be stopped from writing poetry. There's far too much of it. And if they're any good, they'll go ahead anyways.

For me, anything I do is totally up for conversation and it's not my right to be able to stop a person from writing whatever they want. What's harmful and hurtful is when people speculate.

Whores and writers, Mahound. We are the people you can't forgive.

If you want to be a serious writer, then you have to write what there is to write about. If you're going to pull your punches and second-guess yourself and not do things because you're worried, then don't write. Stay home and do something else.

If it is permissible to write plays that are not intended to be seen, I should like to see who can prevent me from writing a book no one can read.

I want brave people. Fearless ones. A good actor just goes out and leaps off the edge and develops wings on his way down, hopefully. That's the kind of people I really enjoy working with. Playing safe isn't much fun. I like danger. It's controlled danger, always, and that's why I hope I don't lure too many good actors down into the pits with me, because I hope they maintain their own unique talents.

Such expression is impossible in a cramped atmosphere. As I have no desire to offer civil disobedience I cannot write freely. As the author of satyagraha I cannot, consistently with my profession, suppress the vital part of myself for the sake of being able to write on permissible subjects. ... It would be like dealing with the trunk without the head.

The following [addition to the Bill of Rights] would have pleased me: The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or otherwise to publish anything but false facts affecting injuriously the life, liberty or reputation of others, or affecting the peace of the [United States] with foreign nations.

People talk differently. You can say some things some places you can't say in other places. But me as a film maker, no words are ever going to be off limits in something I write. As long as people use the words, I'm going to report that.

A forbidden writing is thought to be a certain spark of truth, that flies up in the face of them who seek to tread it out.

When another writer in another house is not free, no writer is free.