David Longstreth Quotes

When I'm in Senegal, I can't just sit in isolation making music. People need my help. And the Senegalese people helped create my music. It comes from the country itself.

I like the idea of multidisciplinary conversations, so in that spirit, I try and make a contribution from the art world into the music world.

My detractors are only accusing me of blowing up cars. What they have not realised is that my films have the potential to cross language barriers. New avenues have opened for Hindi films, and I'm proud and happy about it.

We think it's a blessing that we were able to bring our music to the world. That our music has not only inspired our communities but other communities. That's one of the greatest things an artist in any field could know: that you've touched the mind of another artist.

Visitors who come from the Soviet Union and tell you how marvelous it is to be able to look at public buildings without advertisements stuck all over them are just telling you that they can't decipher the cyrillic alphabet.

Everything in life influences my music.

I've been in situations like in Tokyo where people sang my song word for word and then when the music stopped, they couldn't speak to me. I've seen the music break the language barrier.

Writer's make national literature, while translators make universal literature.

For me my biggest inspiration is trying to make music that effects me as much as the music made by my heroes.

Translation is the circulatory system of the world's literatures

Making a martial arts film in English to me is the same as John Wayne speaking Chinese in a western.

Rza just used the whole synopsis of the karate flick and capitalised offa that around this music. Some things you find out and you compare to yourself, and you're like, 'Wow, it has so much comparison to it', you start to live like that. And that's what happened - we started callin' ourselves Wu-Tang.

Learn the language that they understand, and when they come upon our doorstep to talk we can talk, and they will get the point. There will be a dialog, there will be some communication, and I am quite certain that then there will be some understanding.

I am a Mexican that has been lucky enough to travel the world, speaking English, but with a heart that speaks a universal language.

Shakespeare, with an improved education and in a more enlightened age, might easily have attained the purity and correction of Racine; but nothing leads one to suppose that Racine in a barbarous age would have attained the grandeur, force and nature of Shakespeare.

I see my work plagiarized in gardening programmes and decorating programmes and car adverts, and I suppose I have to accept that's just the way art gets assimilated into culture.

I have a huge relationship with Brazil; it's almost a love affair, I would say. And to me, to introduce that specific martial art like capoeira in Hollywood movies was something important to me.

By and large, Americans close their ears to anything not in English. That's stupid because there's some great music around the world that we should be listening to.

The people of the two nations, French and English, must be brought into mutual dependence by the supply of each other's wants. There is no other way of counteracting the antagonism of language and race. It is God's own method of producing an entente cordiale, and no other plan is worth a farthing.

Pick a destination, go there, be open-minded and talk to the locals. Eat the things they eat and go where they go. You don't need to be fluent, just as long as you've got a smile on your face- people will be jumping over themselves to show you the stuff they're proud of.

I really enjoy English and poetry and writing classes. You do get writer's block when you're writing music, and having inspiration from other great writers is great. You have to look for inspiration because sometimes music isn't the only thing that you can look at.

The population increasing, some of it could be in countries we haven't thought of making art in. I've never entertained making comedy in China. Like what world is that? I don't know how they would perceive art or sketch comedy. It's not a matter of intellect; it's a matter of language.

I've always dreamed of getting to know the women of other countries better. When I was a boy, I remember, I used to get angry at the thought that I did not know German or American or Swedish women.

We exchanged many frank words in our respective languages.

When you watch the subtitled version you are probably missing just as many things. There is a layer and a nuance you're not going to get. Film crosses so many borders these days. Of course it is going to be distorted.