Mickalene Thomas Quotes

I still hope that more people can create art, even though artistic genres may never be the most popular or money-making genres. But the thing is, I think art is more long-lasting. It stays in people, and it changes them.

I've been really fortunate where I've made stuff that connects to people on a positive level, and that makes me feel really good, but I can't feel comfortable in dictating what they're supposed to feel out of it, nor am I a professional in something where I can really help people any farther than creating the things that I make to help myself.

Auden said poetry makes nothing happen. But I wonder if the opposite could be true. It could make something happen.

The privilege I've had as a curator is not just the discovery of new works... but what I've discovered about myself and what I can offer in the space of an exhibition - to talk about beauty, to talk about power, to talk about ourselves, and to talk and speak to each other.

It's a joyful, humbling feeling to be in different places around the planet, and people have seen shows that I'm proud of being a part of, that do have things to say about the human condition, the planet, and who we are and where we've come from, that will sustain.

Can art change the world? Maybe... we should change the question: Can art change people's lives?

You never know when what you do in the arts means something to people, and you never really know if you've been received well.

When you talk about inspiration, I draw inspiration from life. The people that I work with.

There are so many films I lean on and look toward and return to that give me some guidance on how to keep moving in the world, and that's what film does, at its best.

I'm proud of the younger Roland. Very proud of some of the lyrics. They stand up today. I'm cool with it, though some of it is a bit painful.

I'll be honest: 'Badlands' changed my life: it really did rewire my brain as to how film can operate.

I can't help but feel that stuff that comes to me by chance or on purpose, whatever, tends to reflect where I am as a human being.

I'm very aware of the influence I've had, and I'm very pleased with that, because it proves that my work was necessary, that people liked it, and that it was right for its time which is a big compliment. But of course, this means I now have to move on. If more people are doing what I'm doing, I have to evolve. I'm pushed toward a new direction, and I have to let myself be tempted, find out where I can go.

I could care less about ever having a No. 1 single. I would just like to be able to play and have people who grow old with you, and you stay with them through their life. We've got a few sentences, maybe, to say what life's about. Hopefully, we'll get a chapter later.

When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature.

Impossible; for how many people did you know who refracted your own light to you?

I read to see myself in other people's lives.

I have performed for thousands when they found me exotic, the vogue, daring, but I have danced, at any given time, for about ten people... They were the ones that left the theater forever different from the way they were when they came in. All of my long, long life, I have danced for those ten.

Good theater should always send people away feeling changed.

I feel close to people like Jimi Hendrix because I connect with his music. Not the man but what he did.

The human race is inquisitive about other people's lives, but negligent to correct their own.

It's really something for people who are approaching 30 to take a look at what that means to them. I think turning 30 is a chance to re-identify with yourself.

I cannot count the good people I know who to my mind would be even better if they bent their spirits to the study of their own hungers.

For many years, I was a really heavy drinker, but people don't know about that because I'm by myself all the time. Recently, I didn't drink for eight or nine months, and I learned that alcohol was quadrupling the embarrassing moments - those moments when you're drunk and you say something you remember the next morning and feel embarrassed about.

I can take critism, but if it's like 'I don't like you' then I want to know why people don't like me. Why do you hate me? What have I done?