Nawal El Saadawi Quotes

I'm a complete deviant. All creative work breaks new ground.

I'm a creative person, and I'm gonna be creative, so whoever's upset because of that, that's too bad.

An artist must be a reactionary. He has to stand out against the tenor of the age and not go flopping along.

All art is based on non-conformity.

Nobody does animation better than Disney; it's just that some of us wanted out of the box. Burton was one. I was another. We were the mutual complaint society.

An artist must be a reactionary. He has to stand out against the tenor of the age and not go flopping along.

The creative individual has the capacity to free himself from the web of social pressures in which the rest of us are caught. He is capable of questioning the assumptions that the rest of us accept.

I went into architecture a little as 'Peck's Bad Boy.' It allowed me to be a critic in a socially condoned way.

I could program a 'fabulous, I love it' kind of hit season right now. I'm more interested in breaking boundaries, telling a story, defying a truth that has been accepted.

All art is based on nonconformity ... Without nonconformity we would have had no Bill of Rights or Magna Carta, no public education system, no nation upon this continent, no continent, no science at all, no philosophy, and considerably fewer religions.

When subject matter is forced to fit into preconceived patterns, there can be no freshness of vision. Following rules of composition can only lead to a tedious repetition of pictorial cliches.

Sure, I can talk like you, but I choose not to, It's like an art, you know? Picasso had to prove to the world he could paint the right way, before he goes putting both eyes on the side of a face... See if you paint wrong because that's the best you can do, you just a chump. But you do it because you want to? Then you're an artist...You can take that to the grave and dig it up when you need it.

Creativity is not and never has been sensible.

I think there's always a call for people who are bucking the norm.

A writer or painter cannot change the world. But they can keep an essential margin of nonconformity alive.

I remember when I was in art classes, I hated following the assignments. And I would get in trouble for doing something totally different or taking it in a weird direction.

A true artist is always out of his time.

I get a kick out of being an outsider constantly. It allows me to be creative.

Not to be boxed in, to be able to transcend boundaries: for an artist, it's essential.

It does not matter how badly you paint so long as you don't paint badly like other people.

I want to be an artist you cannot categorize at all. You can't put a box around me. You can't put anything around me.

Poetry is man's rebellion against being what he is.

I'm against fashionable thinking.

My respect for artists is very high. I think to get the most out of them, you have to liberate them. I think part of liberating them is saying, 'Come up with something brilliant, new, and fresh. Stop thinking based on what has been beat into you by executives or publishers in terms of what's going to work and what's not. Don't react, just act.'

I learned to embrace my individuality, and if that meant writing a song on one chord over and over again, then that's what I do.