Greg Graffin Quotes

Punk was more based on social change than on music, so it didn't bother me too much. It wasn't really a musical threat.

Music has always been my first love, and I appreciate how a great musician can bring awareness to tough issues through their work.

Music can't change the world.

Pop music has greater power to change people and to affect people because it's a universal language. You don't have to understand music to understand the power of a pop song.

Music is always a commentary on society.

Actors are agents of change. A film, a piece of theater, a piece of music, or a book can make a difference. It can change the world.

Music moves society more than most people realize. In my opinion, it's a soft manipulator of influence and change.

In my theater, I'm not trying to change the world.

Music should never be harmless.

Music has always pushed ahead social movements and can do much more than just dumb down a populace.

Now, I don't know whether a film can change the world, but I know that it starts - I know the power of it - I know that it starts people thinking about how to change the world.

The music industry has been hijacked by corporate interests, but the way music affects people and resonates with them hasn't changed.

It's fair to say that white America wouldn't have elected an African-American president without the integrating effect of black music - from Louis Armstrong to hip-hop - and black drama and fiction, commercial as much as 'serious.'

I originally wanted to embrace the imagery and forthrightness of rap music. There are some interesting, dynamic voices in rap. But I find most of it irresponsible in its overt violence and commercialization of anger. As artists, we believe we can will action through language. If that's the case, we have to take responsibility for what we say.

I definitely believe that art is the best way to produce social change.

It's often the case that great artists - people like Bruce Springsteen - tend to pick up the subterranean rumblings of profound social change long before the economic statisticians notice them. Changes start long before they become statistics.

Any form of art is a form of power; it has impact, it can affect change - it can not only move us, it makes us move.

I mean, there's a hell of a lot of grounds for protest, but you don't do it through music.

Hip-hop started as this niche moment, and the values of it, the cultures that it carried on its back; language, clothes, the way you wear your clothes, the items that you consume, all came with the music as an art form. And those things helped transform how people buy, shop, speak, engage.

I think maybe since there isn't a great deal of access to the mainstream media and people don't understand the language of mainstream media, if you put music out there with lyrics that are loosely political, people absorb some of it and spit it back out.

I enjoy all mediums, and I have to say, music is the medium that first made me understand how powerful art could be.

Music can change the world because it can change people.

Hip-hop is supposed to uplift and create, to educate people on a larger level and to make a change.

A song is a lot of things. But, first of all, a song is the voice of its time. Setting words to music gives them weight, makes then somehow easier to say, and it helps them to be remembered.

I still feel that a movie has to attempt to say something - even if it fails miserably. But I've sort of given up on believing that I'm going to change the world with every film I choose to act in.