Simon Schama Quotes

Because its hard to realize now that that was the end of the great depression, you know. All of a sudden all of this is in front of me and I'm solvent, you know. I'm making some money and I know where my next meal is coming from, and I have a new pair of shoes and that's it.

In Europe they understand that the arts are incredibly important both culturally and economically.

The importance of the arts to the societies in which they thrive is well documented.

The only reason I'm able to do music is because I'm making money on 'Community.' If I wasn't, I couldn't pay for things.

The older I get, I'm really reminded how important the arts are to our wellbeing as a society.

One year was so bad for me and my wife that we were going to have to sell our house until Elaine decided to change career and earn some money.

I've been busy and not busy, and busy is better. I've been busy, but I went through a lot of periods where it was lean for a lot of times.

Financial hardships were rough on us, even though Mom had a good job at G.M.

l had a job, and if you had a job in the depression you were rich.

Can anybody remember when the times were not hard and money not scarce?

I believe art is utterly important. It is one of the things that could save us.

A lot of the times, I end up having to do jobs to sort of pay the bills.

I was raised with the idea that the arts were a doss - but the arts are vital. If you see Mark Rylance perform Shakespeare at the Globe, you know it's a spiritual act.

I think that a society lives or dies according to its respect for - for its art.

I think, in the West, we often discount the arts as nice but not that important. Certainly in America when we cut funding for schools, the arts are the first programs to go. But the arts built the things we need more than anything else: collaboration and co-operation and creativity.

I'll just put it this way: I've struggled enough as a working actor - and, most of the times, a not working actor - to know that anytime you are working is a blessing.

The disasteris not the money, although the money will be missed. The disaster is the disrespect--this belief that the arts are dispensable, that they're not critical to a culture's existence.

I'm happy to work when I've worked, and you've got to take the hard times with the good times. But there are times where I'm not as financially set as one might assume. So you have concerns about, 'Wow, I have this level of notoriety and... I better get a job.'

Liberty never had to file bankruptcy, thanks to God's blessings, but we did go through tough times and painful debt restructuring in the 1990s.

I never grew up with money, and I never wanted a lot of material things.

We need to have a view that culture has a value in itself, not just in terms of a social and economic value.

To raise a son by yourself and not having a car or not having the right income to make sure he can do all the things that he wants to do, but make him feel comfortable, is amazing.

Pretty much everybody we know in Glasgow who's in a band has another job. All of us have worked in bars, cafes, or cinemas. It means you can afford to do the thing you love.

I wouldn't say we were middle class. There was not lots of money for nice things. But we never wanted for the things we needed.

Some jobs you do - maybe you don't - are jobs that pay mortgages and some are art and I don't care about not being paid on those.