Emraan Hashmi Quotes

All my life I been doin' what people tell me to do. Now, I'm telling them.

I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else's whim or to someone else's ignorance.

I'm actually living my life with the material I choose to work with.

I defied the machinery to make me its slave. Its incessant discords could not drown the music of my thoughts if I would let them fly high enough.

Stand up for yourself and fight for your right to be the artist that you want to be. There's plenty of pressure from outside; people tell you how to dress and how to sing or what to sing, but I always felt like if I'm going to fail or succeed, I want to do it on my own terms.

I think 'punk' should really be defined as paving your own way creatively and by defying any sort of orthodoxy or commercial pressure.

Please don't tell me what I can't do.

I am doing what I'm doing, and if you don't like it, don't go see it.

I have a general feeling that writers and artists who are in this peculiar situation, of being a persecuted artist, all anyone ever asks about is the persecution. It may well be that's the last thing in the world they want to talk about. There were many years in which every journalist in the world wanted to talk to me, but nobody wanted to talk to me about my work. That felt deeply frustrating because I felt there was an attempt to stifle me as an artist. The best revenge I could have was to write.

I wish that I could write. I think that's a wonderful outlet for an artist. You are ultimately in control. Your fate is not determined by outside influences. You can write wherever you are. I don't think I have the talent.

The time-honored role of the artist [is] to speak truth to power.

To think about love and passion and political correctness all together, it doesn't work. Art has to go way past the political to be effective.

We will not be led like sheep to the slaughter.

Ill writers are usually the sharpest censors.

In a moment when criticism shows a singular dearth of direction every man has to be a law unto himself in matters of theatre, writing, and painting. While the American Mercury and the new Ford continue to spread a thin varnish of Ritz over the whole United States there is a certain virtue in being unfashionable.

If you come across an American artist right now who has no political opinions or is afraid of talking politics, be very concerned.

I don't think the government should touch art. Governments are risk averse. They encourage risk-averse personalities to be artists.

Nobody will stop you from creating. Do it tonight. Do it tomorrow. That is the way to make your soul grow - whether there is a market for it or not! The kick of creation is the act of creating, not anything that happens afterward. I would tell all of you watching this screen: Before you go to bed, write a four line poem. Make it as good as you can. Don't show it to anybody. Put it where nobody will find it. And you will discover that you have your reward.

But once a culture develops sufficiently to become skeptical, the idea of censorship becomes less attractive. To suppress a book or a picture or a sculpture or a play or a film is a terrible act of aggression against the artist who created it. This is a miming of capital punishment; it destroys the life that has been emanated by a life.

You know, the radio never wanted you to speak about anything, so the music is kinda influenced by the hands of the radio which wants to homogenize it and dilute it and sanitize it. And for the most part, nobody's takin' the time to seek out the cats that are still tryin' to talk, so they have a difficult time being heard.

I wanted to do my artistic work, and in Iran you have censorship. It was difficult for me to do the work I wanted to do.

An artist in my view is always afraid of extremists; he is always afraid of those who claim to have found the ultimate solution to any question.

I sing my song for a living, and I don't really worry about who listens or what they think. But it seems to make a living.

People should be stopped from writing poetry. There's far too much of it. And if they're any good, they'll go ahead anyways.

Life too near paralyses art.