Suzanne Vega Quotes

I think that to explore the uncomfortable and the politically incorrect is the job of the artist.

Definitely, there is a sense in my writing that people now know me in a personal way. And to an extent, that's true because I write about very personal things, and I use the personal often to contextualize some of these sociopolitical issues that we're dealing with. And to an extent, they're right. They know something about me.

What we're always looking for is weird social issues and weird connections to make. Luckily for them, there's no shortage of material.

If anything is scary about my writing, it's that it's the product of a very particular vision and doesn't reference common speech that heavily. By 'common speech,' I don't mean language as much as an agreed-on way of seeing, or a shorthand.

For me, crime fiction was an opportunity to sneak up on readers with social issues, something they won't go out of their way to seek.

I look around and pay attention to what around me is not being talked about, and then I talk about it with as much humour and honesty as I can. All my books have been that way.

I think when you're in my position as an artist, I can say what I want and talk about the issues that matter.

Whatever I'm writing has seemed to be about something I don't feel I could freely express in my everyday life, and stand-up is a really effective medium for getting people to hear exactly the things and viewpoints that they normally don't want listen to.

Although everything has a political connotation today, 'Mulk' is a social film, to be honest. It is not about any political leader, party or ideology.

All comedy is really talking about social issues and things that are affecting our lives.

Look, anything any writer writes is going to be on some level autobiographical. Part of the funny/sad thing is that you don't always know how autobiographical you're being.

I'll talk all this craziness in my music, but when I have your attention, and you're listening to me, I'll talk about what I want to talk about and what I think we need to address.

I read a quote to the effect that we are always writing about ourselves no matter what we're doing. That may be so.

When I make my socially conscious songs, I go hard with the lyrical content; I go hard with the imagery.

I never try and send messages through my feature films; it's always naturally woven in and comes through on its own, as that's the way I think about society.

As a novelist, you write about social mores, but not everything can be explained.

I think artists throughout the history of time have always been controversial and have been a voice to speak to public culture in a way that a politician can't because they'll lose their constituency.

I really believe that comedy is an incredible tool, and you can use it in many ways.

My films are a personal reflection on the impact that the state - the system and the world - has on me.

Art is observing society around you, representing it through your eyes.

Many of the traits in my characters are exaggerations of things I see in myself. But in 'How Should a Person Be?' I wasn't trying to write about myself so much as a combination of myself and these women I was seeing in our culture.

My art gets called political, as opposed to my intending it to be political. I think that's something that happens with black artists or marginalized voices trying to speak truth. Because there are things in the status quo to speak out against, speaking out against them will inherently be political.

Social realism takes research.

I am an aware citizen, so I want my characters to be aware, too. They should be aware of what's happening in the society and make a commentary. They're not in a la la land.

Sci-fi works for me as a way of getting across a social conceit couched as entertainment. Social realist movies lost their way because they are just not that entertaining.