Hanya Yanagihara Quotes

As a creative individual, I really go out of my way to avoid the corporate scene in terms of songwriting. If the first question is how much money is it going to make, I'm going to be in trouble anyway.

The playwright, along with any writer, composer, painter in this society, has got to have a terribly private view of his own value, of his own work. He's got to listen to his own voice primarily. He's got to watch out for fads, for what might be called the critical aesthetics.

Some writers' view of things depends upon the success of the final result. I'd rather stand or fall on my own concepts. But there is a fine line to be drawn between pointing up something or distorting it.

My greatest achievement is being able to write records that are real snapshots of what's going on in my life. I won't repeat myself for the sake of commerce, or to please other people.

I stay true to my lyrics. If I go back and look at them in hindsight, the emotions I had when I wrote them have passed. It feels unjustified to change them.

I'm prepared to spend the rest of my life playing clubs, if that means I'm playing music that I believe in.

So I am totally aware that when I defend the autonomy of art I'm going counter to my own development. It's more an instinctive reaction, meant to protect the private aspect of the work, the part I am most interested in and which nowadays is at risk in our culture.

I never, ever want to apologize for a film. If it's bad I'll say it's my fault. And that's what I can say so far in all the films that I've done, that if you don't like it, it's entirely my fault.

I'm not an artist who has an agenda that's set by the work.

Some people make movies for money or glory and will take any subject people offer them. But I cannot do that. I need to feel the story and make it mine.

On everything I do I'm always taking someone's money, whether it's a movie studio or a record label. Somebody's paying for it, and I'm always respectful of that. But I'm never going to compromise.

When you're in a songwriting class, and you write a song, and you hand it in to a teacher to grade, I'm still going to say that it's a really awesome song whether I got an A or a D. I learned to stick to my guns and take the tools as tools and not as rules.

First and foremost, you have to make the movie for yourself. And that's not to say, to hell with everyone else, but what else have you got to go on but your own taste and judgment?

I'm not just painting for painting's sake. I want to be truthful.

All my big mistakes are when I try to second-guess or please an audience. My work is always stronger when I get very selfish about it.

The artist is not responsible to any one. His social role is asocial... his only responsibility consists in an attitude to the work he does.

When artists make art, they shouldn't question whether it is permissible to do one thing or another.

I turned down twelve films last year... Huge money films, but I had no respect for the writer or the work.

A writer must face up to the test of reality, including political reality, and that can't be done if he keeps his distance. A literary style cultivated like a hothouse plant may show a certain artificial purity, but it won't really be pure.

It's good to please the network, but you really just have to tell the stories you want to tell, and if you try to please other people, it ends up starting to water stuff down. Those decisions we have to make are hard, but we usually just err on the side of 'What would we want to see?'

I've never put out a song that I wasn't completely proud of and that I didn't love. In that sense, I've never felt like I sold out in any way.

In film school, you get skills, but then you get lackey jobs, working on projects that you probably don't care about. And there's something in me where I just couldn't bring myself to edit some misogynistic rom-com or movies that I would have hated to be a part of. So I knew I just wouldn't get any work because of that.

The music is the thing. I am not writing for critics; I don't want to become a personality.

I think, in general, as a writer, you can't really hide your values. They're always going to fall out onto the page, and I tend to trust that I don't have to force my ideals into the expression of what's going to happen naturally.

I can't do a film just for the sake of it.