Miranda July Quotes

What kind of art do I want to make? What do I stand for? What inspires me? And then to have people in return respond to that... I think that's the greatest thing because throughout dancing, I'm always looking for that.

When you start to think of the arts as not this thing that is going to get you somewhere in terms of becoming an artist or becoming famous or whatever it is that people do, but rather a way of making being in the world not just bearable, but fascinating, then it starts to get interesting again.

I think the consensus among our generation and people younger than us is that we do have a defining challenge in the moment, so I do like being involved in something bigger than the finger-doodling I do in art. It stimulates your brain in certain ways.

We care if people like what we did. If you're just making records for yourself, why put them out and do all these interviews and do touring? I'm a huge music fan, and this is what I do with my artistic time. It's all I really do, except hang out with my family. I value human relationships, and it's a way for me to interact with the world and feel like I'm part of something.

Depression is a real demon in the woods for a lot of creative people, you know? It's part of what the documentary is trying to be about for me, finding balance, where the beauty that is attainable in the creative arts can be matched with the scratchy roughness of regular life.

I try not to think about the idea of reaching more and more people, because once you get in that mindset, I think you lose the point of why you're doing it in the first place. Still, the best feeling I ever get is when I finish a song, and it exists, and it didn't exist before, and now it's there, and it makes me feel a certain way.

Art is supposed to spark conversation and make people think.

You can’t control what other people think about your art. Think about the part of yourself that you can control, which is your ability to be kind and loving and creative.

I used to be embarrassed because I was just a comic-book writer while other people were building bridges or going on to medical careers. And then I began to realize: entertainment is one of the most important things in people's lives. Without it they might go off the deep end. I feel that if you're able to entertain people, you're doing a good thing.

I paint for myself. I don't know how to do anything else, anyway. Also I have to earn my living, and occupy myself.

I have a positive core, and what I'm doing for music and Earth and the people is more living and less critical thinking.

So I don't think being an artist you can ever satisfy - the moment you do get satisfied is the moment you're done, really. I'm actually starting to bug out now, because it's not enough. I get joy and pleasure in the movies out there in the world that people are seeing, but for me, it's about making it. That's why I do it, is to make it, to deal with my life.

This is what I think art is and what I demand of it: that it pull everyone in, that it show one person another's most intimate thoughts and feelings, that it throw open the window of the soul.

I think if someone could demonstrate to me that fiction did no good, I would still do it, because I think it does good for me.

I guess that storytelling would be for me to keep making art that touches people in a way that nothing else can.

It's not a very sane thing to try to be great all the time. You want to make something magical; you want to make something wonderful; you want to give to everybody; you want to heal people; you want to still be inspired. That's not easy.

My work is incredibly important to me personally. It brings me joy and it brings me life and it brings me meaning. It doesn't necessarily have to be important to the people who read it.

I usually don't mind movies that people think go overboard because that's what art is all about. Art is about pushing us and making us examine ourselves.

The music world taught me a lot.It taught me how much happiness it could take from you. J. Cole said it in that interview: People forget their happiness and what makes them happy. Like, what you really wanted to do it for.

I think that's what all art is for - for people to express what it is to be human. That's the purpose of it.

I think as much as possible, an artist, if he has any kind of social or political concern, has to…expose as much as possible what he sees so that some people think about things that they don’t normally think about… [Art] should be something that liberates the soul, provokes the imagination and encourages people to go further.

You have to have something in your life that's more important than the work. People don't really like to admit that. I think that you have to find something else. I don't know what it is. Is it yoga or God or politics? For me it's just family.

The object of art is not to make salable pictures. It is to save yourself.

People sometimes think I take a white canvas and paint a black sign on it,but this is not true.I paint the white as well as the black and the white is just as important.

I don't think you have to go out and become Secretary of State or be Bono but I think it's to let people know that whatever they do in their life that that's good.