Munira Mirza Quotes

I'm one of the strongest advocates for the arts you'll ever find!

We recognize that the arts are an essential part of San Francisco's cultural vitality.

We must carry the arts to the people, not wait for the people to come to the arts.

So what it boils down to, in my humble opinion, is that we need to support the arts in schools, and at every other level in the education of children.

It's great that 'Glee' is making viewers more aware of the arts. People appreciate it.

When I became director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it was stodgy, gray, run by elitists. I said, 'Hey, let's kick the thing around.' I wanted to attract young people to the museum. I said, 'Make it hospitable. I want them to come. I want them to make dates, pick up girls, pick up boys - either way; I don't care.'

All I want to do is make sure that art is available to all Americans in a participatory way, whether you engage in the art process yourself or you're an audience member.

I'm on Governor Gray Davis' California Alliance Towards Education to bring the arts back to high schools.

I've always argued, unsuccessfully, that there's no point in giving money to the arts unless you educate people in them.

… perhaps we are awakening to the realization that if individuals can no longer patronize the arts in the way they did in the old days, we may come to a time where the public will undertake to do this for its own pleasure and profit.

I love that President and Mrs. Obama are embracing the arts. I am so delighted.

If you wait until you're an adult to be exposed to the arts, it could seem elitist, it could seem out of reach, it could seem scary.

If you are not getting people who have never been to the theatre before to come, then you are not doing your job.

A truly vibrant and creative culture depends on a system of education which is not divided along class and sectarian lines.

I would like to see more African-American singers as part of our opera companies. If you take music and the arts out of the public schools, then you're going to lose a lot of people that you might have discovered were talented, very early.

I think the problem with the arts in America is how unimportant it seems to be in our educational system.

My tax dollar, which goes to New York State Council on the Arts, is by and large only spent to fund people from the state of New York! And you want to be the cultural capital of the world?

When I hear anyone talk of Culture, I reach for my revolver.

While books expand horizons by exposing us to worlds outside our own, children also need to see themselves, their experiences and their cultures reflected in books they read. Unfortunately, for too many children, this is not the norm.

Therapy is not a 'white thing.' It's a clinical thing.

The arts are part of the fiber of American society and should get Federal support.

I feel like fashion is making steps toward diversity, but I think they could do more.

The arts are suffering amongst public schools, but also, minority theater companies are struggling, and I firmly believe in freedom of expression through the arts.

The success of the arts has come through a mix of public subsidy, substantial private support, and good box-office receipts, but central to Labour's post-1997 programme has been a determination to increase access as much as excellence.

You can't punish the middle classes for going to drama school - you need to punish the education system and the associative governments for devaluing the arts.