Mandy Patinkin Quotes

There's something so wonderful about being an actor in New York.

I don't think theater is dying, and musicals are a great American art form. We've got apple pie, jazz and musical theater.

Musical theater is great; you get painted up, you get to play princesses and witches, and you sing. The joy alone of that can really carry a lot.

We've got to find a way to protect the process of making musical theater.

I am so excited to have created a line that has been inspired by my culture - showing its color, its passion and its greatness - and one that captures much of my personal style.

I've liked being Jewish in America - there's a secular version of Jewishness there that's more about bagels and jokes than going to synagogues.

Musical theater is often seen as a lesser form of acting, although I don't see it that way.

I'd love to do a musical. I've been known to have a good step or two. I'm half Samoan, you know, and part of our culture is singing and dancing daily.

As far as I was concerned the important thing was that the music was getting the attention as well as me so it was always a great way to get more of the public to connect with classical music, and opera particularly.

In the summer of 2009, I was at the Shakespeare lab at the public theater in New York.

The things that I have done that haven't been as successful have been things that have been largely out of the public view, which is great. It's terrible, when you're a theater writer, to have a big flop publicly.

I believe we have to bring Broadway a little Latino flair. We have to keep it alive.

The art of a people is a true mirror to their minds.

Writing is about culture and should be about everything. That's what makes it what it is.

It is interesting that both Chicano and Puerto Rican art in the United States form an important part of the Civil Rights legacy and dialog.

Culture is the arts elevated to a set of beliefs.

It is not within the competence of the public authorities to determine culture. Their function is to promote and protect the cultural life of everyone, including that of minorities.

A nation is a work of art and a work of time.

Is it true that we must accept the music of another race as being that which is American? Have not the white Americans sufficient individuality to develop a characteristic style of composition.

Art is the permanence of a civilization.

I love going to see musicals. That was one of the major reasons why losing the chance to produce 'La La Land' was so painful.

I thought actors were artists and that artists had to be European.

My grandmother took me to a lot of theater. I was exposed to performance quite a bit - everything from Broadway to off-Broadway and dance and music as well. I was very lucky that way. It was a very rich childhood.

There is a heavy Mexican Catholic streak in my movies, and a huge Mexican sense of melodrama. Everything is overwrought, and there's a sense of acceptance of the fantastic in my films, which is innately Mexican. So when people ask, 'How can you define the Mexican-ness of your films?' I go, 'How can I not?' It's all I am.

I saw 'Hamilton' when it was at the Public, and I just wept profusely in my seat because this is a form I love deeply, and to watch it be reinvented in such a genius, gifted way and executed by such a brilliant company of human beings, I was overwhelmed with not just appreciation for the piece of work itself but for the possibility.