Sam Rockwell Quotes

In times of widespread chaos and confusion, it has been the duty of more advanced human beings--artists, scientists, clowns and philosophers--to create order. In times such as ours, however, when there is too much order, too much management, too much programming and control, it becomes the duty of superior men and women to fling their favorite monkey wrenches into the machinery. To relive the repression of the human spirit, they must sow doubt and disruption.

I was the only guy with any bit of anarchy left.

My characters aren't losers. They're rebels. They win by their refusal to play by everyone else's rules.

Freedom is poetry, taking liberties with words, breaking the rules of normal speech, violating common sense. Freedom is violence.

I think there are some people who have this thing where, from the very beginning, some part of them rejects convention.

Art is maybe a subversive activity. There is a certain rebellion when you are an artist at heart, even if only in the art of living.

I like rules that are broken.

Rules are made for people who aren't willing to make up their own.

The trickster's function is to break taboos, create mischief, stir things up. In the end, the trickster gives people what they really want, some sort of freedom.

The work of art is a scream of freedom.

I passionately hate the idea of being with it; I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time.

Art is individualism, and individualism is a disturbing and disintegrating force.

The American people ... have a stake in con-conformity, for they know that the American genius is non-conformist.

No creator was prompted by a desire to serve his brothers, for his brothers rejected the gift he offered and that gift destroyed the slothful routine of their lives. His truth was his only motive.

I don't like rules of any kind. And I seek people who break rules with happiness - and not bringing pain to themselves.

The world today doesn't make sense, so why should I paint pictures that do?

L.A. is kind of flat these days; I guess Austin and other places are like that now. But that's what I wanted to get across: You could be as crazy as you wanted, and that was OK. You didn't have to be good; people would still come and hear you.

In the end, I was the only one with any anarchy left in me.

It's good to be an anarchist and just love yourself.

I wanted to go so I could learn the rules and conventions in order to break them later on.

Rebels learn the rules better than the rule-makers do. Rebels learn where the holes are, where the rules can best be breached. Become an expert at the rules. Then break them with creativity and style.

In my heart I'm independent, a bit of a rebel, a nonconformist.

Conformists die, but heretics live forever.

By no means. I have just given you my serious and well-considered profession of faith. Although a firm friend of order, I am (in the full force of the term) an anarchist. Listen to me.