Danai Gurira Quotes

My philosophy through all my work, be it on canvas or on the street, is about pushing boundaries and not going with the flow because everyone else is doing something a certain way.

If I'd observed all the rules, I'd never have got anywhere.

I love challenging the status quo.

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

You don't know what the country is ready for unless you're pushing that envelope, and I was told that I couldn't develop 'Will and Grace'.

Being an artist is in part an act of rupture.

The impossible - we are told - cannot be achieved. To overcome the 'impossible,' we need to use our wits and be fearless. We need to break the rules and to circumvent - some would one say to cheat.

I just try to get away with as much as I can. I don't think that's very radical in the art world.

Pushing the boundaries of what's acceptable - to me, that's something I'm definitely interested in and want to pursue.

I don't care about the rules. In fact, if I don't break the rules at least 10 times in every song then I'm not doing my job properly.

Sketching in general - anywhere, not just in Gitmo, but in life, in the world - is a profoundly disruptive act. Because you're creating something when you're kind of expected to consume or sit passively. I've always sketched things as a way to get into them, whether it was a fancy nightclub or, you know, to have kids think I was cool, whatever.

All I really want to do is things I haven't done. 'I'm gonna put a paper bag on my head and be on the cover of 'Billboard,' see what I can get away with - if they'll let me.' And they let me. And I am literally giggling inside for, like, a month that I got away with it.

I'm glad I've established this as my zone: 'the taboo breaker.'

What people don't realize is that when you start making things outside of the convention of what is normal or good or 'best practices,' you're also shedding some of the baggage that comes with the concept of what a game 'should' be.

More Than' challenges every norm, refuses to accept the rules as they are, one-size-fits-all, and most importantly, 'More Than' implores you to take massive risk.

Defying genre conventions is instantly a risky move.

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.

We need the disruption of categories that lead us to abandon the difficult, the disagreeable, and the least likely to go very far.

I do like things that are not necessarily a reflection of what is considered the right thing by this culture. Somehow, promoting that status quo I find uninteresting.

I like surprising myself. I don't want to do the norm, do what I'm always known to do, write how I like to write.

When I started making movies, I was pretty young, and at the time I felt like there needed to be more confrontation in cinema - or I needed to make something more disruptive - so in the beginning, those movies were me wanting to play with the rules.

Original thought, original artistic expression is by its very nature questioning, irreverent, iconoclastic.

Rough work, iconoclasm, but the only way to get at truth.

Being vital means knowing the rules and being brave enough to break them.

If a musician dares to get out of the box he's been put in, people get confused. They want people where they can find them! I am fortunate in some respects as I've always been known as someone who 'moves around' and tries different things. But generally, we are supposed to stay where we're put.