Marya Mannes Quotes

One of the things about what . . . I do - writing plays - is that a poll is not taken before you say, Well, I'm going to write this because I think that you're going to like this and therefore you'll buy a ticket for this.

I think being an activist and an artist is an interesting contradiction, because so often they are at odds with one another. When you write as an artist you have to clean the palate of your own politics in creating characters and activism is kind of the exact opposite.

We are going to finish this picture just the way I want it... because you cannot compromise an artist's vision.

Art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic.

Honestly, I really can't speak on others, but in a sense, I feel like every artist always has their problems with the industry because we all want to have our creative way.

I think people should just make art and let the art speak for itself.

Rules limit you, and once you start thinking about what the audience wants or expects, it becomes a trap that a lot of artists fall into.

The work of art may have a moral effect, but to demand moral purpose from the artist is to make him ruin his work.

I am a communist and my painting is a communist painting. But if I were a shoemaker, Royalist or Communist or anything else, I would not necessarily hammer my shoes in any special way to show my politics.

If the director's a communist, whatever, he's a communist. All I care is that he directs. For the actor, the same thing. All you really care is that he comes in and performs.

It is precisely those artists and writers who are most inclined to think of their art as the manifestation of their personality who are in fact the most in bondage to public taste.

Art cannot be subordinate to its subject, otherwise it is not art but biography.

I think it's really important to not talk about how you're going to release something until you've finished it. People are like, "What are we going to make? What are we going to do with it?" and it's just like, "I don't know, we're just making music. Then we'll talk." You can't always write something you're happy with; you can't force it.

I'm not trying to push my political agenda on anybody. I'll do that like any other citizen by giving money to a party or candidate I believe in. I don't mind going out and endorsing somebody I believe in. But when we're talking about my films, I don't think my politics should have anything to do with it.

Art for art's sake? I should think so, and more so than ever at the present time. It is the one orderly product which our middling race has produced. It is the cry of a thousand sentinels, the echo from a thousand labyrinths, it is the lighthouse which cannot be hidden. It is the best evidence we can have of our dignity.

I'm very political. Because I read politics every day, so I'm familiar with the world. I approach the films is I'm trying to write what is true, so that supersedes partisan spin, in my opinion. I find partisanship is a thing for cable news and newspaper articles, but it's not interesting for art. I think we all believe what we believe, and I don't think a film is going to change someone's mind.

So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say.

I do worry that beginning cartoonists could feel somewhat strangled by the increasing critical seriousness comics has received of late and feel, like younger writers, that they have to have something to "say" before they set pen to paper. Many cartoonists feel even more passionate about this idea than I do, vehemently insisting that comics are inherently "non-art" and poop humor or whatever it is they think it is, but that attitude is a little like insisting that all modern writing should always take the form of The Canterbury Tales.

Art can be very political but that can't be the purpose of art, it can't be the driving force. It isn't with any of the books that I love, anyway.

It's so difficult to write good music. It's also really difficult to think about how to do it without violating the sanctity of the fourth wall.

I can't do movies where you start thinking "Where's the commercial appeal? How are we going to market this?" It's not that kind of party.

Don't be dismayed by the opinions of editors, or critics. They are only the traffic cops of the arts.

I'm not conditioned to be an entertainer. An entertainer pleases others while an artist only has to please himself. The problem with that is artists are misunderstood by all. I'm not interested in the clarinet but in music. we speak our emotions into music. An artist should write for himself and not for an audience. If the audience likes it, great. If not, they can keep away. My situation is the same. Let them concentrate on my music and not on me. I like the music. I love it and live it, in fact. But for me, the business part of music just plain stinks.

If you just write the kinds of stories you think others will want to read, you'll be competing with cartoonists who are far more enthusiastic for that kind of comic than you are, and they'll kick your ass every time.

To be sure, a good work of art can and will have moral consequences, but to demand of the artists moral intentions, means ruiningtheir craft.