Don DeLillo Quotes

Denver's commitment to giving contemporary storytellers the stage is crucial to the American theater. That's something embraced by 'Smash.' We should be telling our own stories.

The American writer has his hands full, trying to understand and then describe and then make credible much of American reality.

But what I'm very interested in, whether it's writing, whether it's hosting a show, whether it's cooking food, I'm just into the discussions of identity, culture and the politics of culture.

I am here on Earth to express myself, and the many media of art are my magic carpets that allow me the freedom to do so.

I would like to use stories as a springboard for children to make their own creative responses. I would like to encourage them to express themselves using music, art, film or whatever, and upload it to a website having been inspired by particular stories.

Fashion is not separate from art. It is inextricably woven into how we open ourselves to the world and articulates the exchanges of power both real and imagined.

I think there's a growing courage among the younger generation of American writers. Because of the more superficial treatment of characters taking place in cinema, they have had to deal with that by digging deeper into who these people are.

I think a lot of Indians want Indian artists to be cultural cheerleaders rather than cultural investigators.

I like the idea of bringing cartoon characters to life... and although the Americans have already attempted this, their culture is not sufficiently humane to make it work.

The American formula things are out there but they don't have any stories to tell - we have all the stories to tell - but they're all formula.

The arts are so important not only to society but to ourselves as human beings. It keeps in touch with our own humanity. So access to the arts in any way, shape, or form is vital.

Thank God for jazz. It gave black women what film and theater gave white women: a well-lighted space where they could play with roles and styles, conduct esthetic experiments and win money and praise.

Lyrics is commissioned work, it is my profession. But poetry is my statement to life.

I really didn't want to be boxed into becoming a certain kind of film-maker - becoming the Maori story film-maker because I had made those short films.

I sang a song in Hindi; nobody even knew what that was. Singing about Native American issues, nobody did that... I had no reason to want to copy anybody else... All I had was my originality.

I've written and translated my own poems from English to German. It's basically a summation of my identity as it stands now.

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.

I wrote as a teenager, and once I started acting, you know, you're learning lines, you're doing other people's words, it takes up a lot of time. Especially if you're dedicated to what you're doing, you're trying to do a decent job at it. But I would have said to myself, "Write more, please."

Modern art to me is nothing more than the expression of contemporary aims of the age we’re living in. All cultures have had means and techniques of expressing their immediate aims – the Chinese, the Renaissance, all cultures. The thing that interests me is that today painters do not have to go to a subject matter outside of themselves. Most modern painters work from a different source, they work from within.

I wrote a novel because I had a yen to do it. I believe this is sufficient reason to set out to tell a story.

Freedom of expression is a very essential condition for me to make any art. Also, it is an essential value for my life. I have to protect this right and also to fight for the possibility.

Daddy says the world is a drum tight and hard and I told him I'm gonna beat out my own rhythm.

That is my reality. It's that important to nurture and foster my own creativity. There are plenty of birthday parties I haven't been able to go to, weddings I haven't been able to go to because I've been working. Those are things that have not been easy to give up, but at the same time, it is my reality. It's my responsibility.

I mean it's the writing, not the being read, that excites me.

It's a joy to actually be able to control your own music.