Samuel Johnson Quotes

Mr. Balanchine was a great gentleman, and he loved his dancers. He was devoted to his company. He came to the ballet every night, and his presence was felt. It was like the whole company was dancing for him. And if he liked you, he trusted you to be yourself. He didn't try to change you and make you into something you were not.

I've never read a screenplay in advance. You trust the artist.

I want to work with a director who becomes my brother, my father, for two months. You give yourself over to that person.

I don't think I should be telling you every 10 minutes what to think. I like to leave the audience alone with the magic. I tend to trust the material, or I don't do it.

I follow the director's lead because they generally know more about the big picture, but I also trust that the director will give me enough freedom to play.

All I ask, is the privilege for my masculine part the poet in me.... If I must not, because of my sex, have this freedom... I lay down my quill and you shall hear no more of me.

Painters and poets have equal license in regard to everything.

There is no Sixth Commandment in art. The poet is entitled to lay his hands on whatever material he finds necessary for his work.

A parent, unlike a poet, is not born - he is made.

The poet knows that he speaks adequately, then, only when he speaks somewhat wildly.

"Painters and poets," you say, "have always had an equal license in bold invention." We know; we claim the liberty for ourselves and in turn we give it to others.

What believer sees a disturbing omission or infelicity? The text, whether of prophet or of poet, expands for whatever we can put into it, and even his bad grammar is sublime.

You have a point," said Fronto, "and even a poet must occasionally bow to logic.

Why should not a poet's cat be winged as well as his horse?

Painters and poets alike have always had license to dare anything! We know that, and we both claim and allow to others in their turn this indulgence.

I feel in poetry there aren't that many rules that you need to absolutely live by depending on your style of poetry.

Ang Lee just allowed me to make what we would call mistakes and had no judgment of them. He also empowered me. You know, he's like, "You're my actor. I chose you. Whatever you do is right." Right? "I made the decision, I'm complicit in choosing you. And I went through everything I could to choose you, so I feel good and whatever you're going to do I'm going to give you this space." And so it was very empowering.

The emperor would prefer the poet to keep away from politics, the emperor's domain, so that he can manage things the way he likes.

As a poet I would say everything should be able to come into a poem but I can't put toothbrushes in a poem. I really can't.

In my bands, I don't really walk around telling people what to play, just out of respect really. I mean, if there's something I feel in my gut, I'll bring it up.

one reason why I like writing poetry - you can say so many things in it that are true in poetry but wouldn't be true in prose.

I don't try to overintellectua lize my concepts of people. In fact, the ideas I have, if you talk about them, they seem extremely corny and it's only in their execution that people can enjoy them...It's something I've learned to trust: The stupider it is, the better it looks.

I never want to lead a team that is not allowed the freedom to pursue what's in their hearts. If you want your team to be fully committed, then you'd better be fully committed

What you do when you paint, you take a brush full of paint, get paint on the picture, and you have faith.

And Mandelstam says a poet - you go down to the shore and you see an unlikely looking from a bottle from the past, you open it. Mandelstam says, "It's okay to do so. I'm not reading someone else's mail. It was addressed to whoever found it. I found it, therefore it's addressed to me."