Ray Bradbury Quotes

Write what you think is good, is the whole of the law.

In a city, there's more room to be, where in a small town, you have to squish yourself down a little bit. And it's exciting for me to be pursuing a career where I don't have to be small.

All our forms are unique - movies, music and literature - and you have to leave the person who is doing it to do their best.

You should do the sound that you want and not what others want.

You have to try and make the role your own and not copy anyone else.

Art is where we make a stand. If we don't make it there, freedom of expression is lost for everyone - for artists, for journalists, and for everyday people.

Art and life are subjective. Not everybody's gonna dig what I dig, but I reserve the right to dig it.

We only do what we think is good and what we're happy with. I do that in stand-up, I even do it with my children's books. I don't do market research, I don't have focus groups, I don't care. I don't care if it fails, honestly. I'd rather have something that's completely mine fail than something succeed that I'm not proud of.

I'm not an old-fashioned, booze-and-drugs rock 'n' roller. For me, rock 'n' roll is all about doing whatever you want. It's about defying convention and being who you are. I'd rather go swimming or running or kite flying.

It's really tough to make a name for yourself without compromising and without fitting yourself into a real specific mold. When I made the choice that I would be involved in every aspect of music and not necessarily make music for radio or MTV, I was saying, 'OK, this is me. You decide who it is.'

I really wouldn't censor myself. But because it was on such a slower scale, I would throw things out, and I indulged the personal stuff as little flashes of truth. Little in-jokes for anyone who was paying particular attention.

I think you have to have a real point of view that's your own. You have to tell it your way. And, I think that it's a mistake to shoot for a specific magazine's point of view because it's never going to be as good. You have to shoot for yourself and photograph [ the way] you believe it.

Even growing up, if I dealt with any pressure to be a certain way, I knew that as an artistic lane, dancing was the one that was a little more freed up - like no one in my family is really doing that, I can be that person.

And if you're going to criticize me for not finishing the whole thing and tying it up in a bow for you, why, do us both a favor and write your own damn book, only have the decency to call it a romance instead of a history, because history's got no bows on it, only frayed ends of ribbons and knots that can't be untied. It ain't a pretty package, but then it's not your birthday that I know of so I'm under no obligation to give you a gift.

Skateboarding is as much, or more, an art of mode of expression than it is a sport. What skateboarding has given me is precisely that: a form of expression that drew me to it, and, in so doing, I was able to express and be who I wanted to be through it, in a sense.

It would be the death of all creativity for me if I had to sit there and be concerned with the sensibilities of a fourteen-year-old kid. Some fourteen-year-olds would revel in the book, and some would be very sensitive to it, so you can't afford to worry about that. What I worry about is good taste and getting my message across by whatever means I can.

Art! What a concept! It saved my life! A place where you can do as you please!

I say what I think. I'm a real person, not some manufactured pop tart who's afraid to step out of the hotel room. I am flawed. I swear, I have the occasional cocktail, I pick my nose and I fart. I'm not running for any presidential campaign at the moment. I'm a sassy girl.

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.

Anybody that's old and closed-minded does not like Rick James... They don't like the fact that I'm free and I'm wide open.

I am free to write the worst junk in the world.

Sure, I can talk like you, but I choose not to, It's like an art, you know? Picasso had to prove to the world he could paint the right way, before he goes putting both eyes on the side of a face... See if you paint wrong because that's the best you can do, you just a chump. But you do it because you want to? Then you're an artist...You can take that to the grave and dig it up when you need it.

The artist can within limits make what he likes of his life... It is only the artist, and maybe the criminal, who can make his own.

Fashion is free speech, and one of the privileges, if not always one of the pleasures, of a free world

I don't chase what everyone else is looking for. Being creative is all about you.