John Tiffany Quotes

Now that we do not have priests and philosophers any more, artists are the most important people in the world.

The impact of a conscious artist is necessary, and it ripples through the world.

Theatre is one of those things that children will love if they're helped to get there to see it. No child will find his or her own way to the theatre.

I feel that art deals with issues way before any political organisation.

When people say, 'Stay in your lane; you're a musician, so you should only talk about music,' what do you think songs are written about? I connect with music because what somebody has said has resonated with me in one way or another.

The art world has become so insular. The rules have become so autodidactic that, in a sense, they lose track of what people have any interest in thinking about, talking about, or even looking at.

People say I'm destroying hip-hop, and I'm like, there's so much hip-hop, and it's so popular, so I don't know why I have the power to destroy it.

The percentage of Indian kids doing some sort of artistic work is much higher than in the general population - painting, drawing, dancing, singing. The creation of art is still an everyday part of Indian culture, unlike the dominant culture, where art is sort of peripheral.

Art can make a difference because it pulls people up short. It says, don't accept things for their face value; you don't have to go along with any of this; you can think for yourself.

An artist creates songs and timeless moments that are reflections that impact culture, and you can do that in any way - with guitars, ukelele, a computer. So, that will never die. It's always the artist behind the computer, not the computer.

There is only one reason for art in America, and that is that the people of America learn the means of expressing themselves in their own time, and their own land.

I'm very aware of how much movies, literature and art affect culture. They are a reflection of the world around us and they are also a means by which we engage with the world around us.

I think that these are different times, and different things are available to artists, and certain things have become passé. You've already seen the outcome of a lot of things that seemed to have a lot of potential. We've already heard that, and I can't tell you if it made a difference or not. But we already know that artists can do that, and they shouldn't feel threatened by doing it. They're probably not going to change the world. They're going to change a few people's perspectives and maybe make somebody's day at times, if they can.

I never thought that the music called "jazz" was ever meant to reach just a small group of people, or become a museum thing locked under glass like all the other dead things that were once considered artistic.

No, the thing to do is try to make a painting that will be alive in your own lifetime.

I went to London a lot as a young designer because London was a major inspiration, not only for the clothes but the sense of freedom. I remember going to see a stage production of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" in the mid Eighties and loving the mix of Goth and humor, and in my shows I've always liked to play jokes and have fun.

What comes forth from you as an artist cannot be controlled. But you have responsibilities as a global citizen. Your history dictates your duty. And by writing about black people, you are not limiting yourself. The experiences of African-Americans are as wide open as God's closet.

The end of lower art is to please, the end of average art is to raise the top, the end of superior art is to free.

Many audiences all over the world will answer positively from their own experience that they have seen the face of the invisible through an experience on the stage that transcended their experience in life. They will maintain that Oedipus or Berenice or Hamlet or The Three Sisters performed with beauty and with love fires the spirit and gives them a reminder that daily drabness is not necessarily all.

The current climate doesn't represent a threat to the production of art but to the market. I think it's time for artists to get over auction houses, galleries, and high-production-value exhibitions and start using our voices again.

Art for art's sake is dead, if it ever lived.

I think art is the ability to change people with your work, to see things as they are and then create stories, images, and interactions that change the marketplace.

I hope I will always have the ability to create art and live in a world where I can speak freely, and I can inspire people. I don't know what form that will take.

A wise man can and should stand above his times, not so the poet, but he should be their apex.

Art keeps one young, I think, because it keeps one perpetually a beginner, perpetually a child.