David Antin Quotes

I think the biggest thing is voice. Whose voice is it? Who gets to control the narrative?

If we don't tell our own stories, no one else will.

To be a prisoner means to be defined as a member of a group for whom the rules of what can be done to you, of what is seen as abuse of you, are reduced as part of the definition of your status.

On this show, your voice will be heard in the form of my voice.

The lesson you have to learn as novelist is how to be collaborative, and how to say, "I don't get to dictate this."

There is something to be said about laying bare the vocabulary of the aristocratic measure, right? There's something to be said about allowing the powerless to tell their own story.

One of the things about writing a novel is you can do it any way you want. It's your voice that's important and I see absolutely no reason why a screenplay can't be the same. It makes it a hell of a lot easier when you're the writer and the director.

...I can write my own stories and I can write myself in.

The work is the work. The work is not me. I like the anonymity that directors can have about their films. Even though it's my voice, I'm a storyteller.

I like to think that I get better and better as a writer, but it seems pretty easy to me to slip on disguises of various people.

Building a relationship with the character. It's just like sitting with someone you know. It's very easy to predict when they're going to shake their head or say whatever, but because I'm the author I have to make characters do what I want them to do.

Africa’s story has been written by others; we need to own our problems and solutions and write our story.

You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories.

That feeling of hopelessness only serves your masters.

Who speaks is not who writes, and who writes is not who is.

A person's tragedy does not make up their entire life. A story carves deep grooves into our brains each time we tell it. But we aren't one story. We can change our stories. We can write our own.

Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person.

In television, the creator is really the voice...

The notion of fate and destiny is a very Greek concept. Working in the theater you do think a lot about that, because as a storyteller you do think, 'At what point was this always going to happen and what part have I got a hand in being able to change things?'

And books are such an empowering way to give voice to some of these kids who aren't yet ready to tell their story. Or don't know what their story is, or are trying to figure it out.

Are writers reporters, prophets, crazies, entertainers, preachers, judges, what?

And the books you write. They're not you. They're not me sitting here, this Henry Miller. They belong to someone else. It's terrible. You can never rest.

If it's a story I'm telling, then I have control over the ending... But if it's a story, even in my head, I must be telling it to someone. You don't tell a story only to yourself. There's always someone else. Even when there is no one.

Experience proves that those are oftenest abused who can be abused with the greatest impunity. Men are whipped oftenest who are whipped easiest.

What we know about who we are comes from stories. It's the agents of our imagination who really shape who we are.