Chaim Potok Quotes

I have no ethics when it comes to art. You just do what you can to make it as beautiful as you can.

I define nothing. Not beauty, not patriotism. I take each thing as it is, without prior rules about what it should be.

Willie Nelson is the perfect person, it seems to me, to think about. Because something tells me that he operates on his own frequency.

I suppose I have become a sort of living monument in Portugal. But I come from a family with roots all over the world, so the idea of patriotism is not very strong in me. My country is the country of Chekhov, Beethoven, Velasquez - writers I like, painters and artists I admire.

I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time.

Make my skin into drumheads for the Bohemian cause.

Manet did not do the expected. He was a pioneer. He followed his individual whim. Told the public what he wanted it to know, not the time worn things the public already knew and thought it wanted to hear again. The public was very much offended.

I'd rather live in Bohemia than in any other land.

I just wanna make the world a better-looking place. If you don't like it, you can paint over it!

A good man, though he will value his own countrymen, yet will think as highly of the worthy men of every nation under the sun.

My imagination can picture no fairer happiness than to continue living for art.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with singing it in Spanish. The point is it’s the United States national anthem and what people want is it to be sung in a way that respects the United States and our culture. At the same time, we are a nation of immigrants. We are a nation of many, many languages, because immigrants come and bring their languages.

To the brave man every land is a native country.

Like many foreign students when they go abroad, I was instantly thrust into a position of having to explain and defend my country. That is a very common predicament.

If you are unhappy with the United States. pick a better country and go live there.

The question really isn't whether I'm American, Russian, Iranian, Azerbaijani, or anything else. I've been shaped by all these people and cultures and I feel quite comfortable among all of them

I can relax with bums because I am a bum. I don't like laws, morals, religions, rules. I don't like to be shaped by society.

All I really want to do is things I haven't done. 'I'm gonna put a paper bag on my head and be on the cover of 'Billboard,' see what I can get away with - if they'll let me.' And they let me. And I am literally giggling inside for, like, a month that I got away with it.

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.

I think 'punk' should really be defined as paving your own way creatively and by defying any sort of orthodoxy or commercial pressure.

I was never your average artist, happy to do whatever the record company told me.

I am not a conformist.

I've always felt like a designer of lifestyle that has a certain spirit and bohemian quality.

We're all trying so hard to be beautiful, but the people in 'Kuso' are trying so hard to be disgusting.

The global view of cultures is part of my nature. I want to break down the walls between genres, categories, or cultures.