Jenny Holzer Quotes

Virginity is now a mere preamble or waiting room to be got out of as soon as possible; it is without significance.

Making art in America is about saving one's soul.

We are on a sexual binge in this country. ... One consequence of this binge is that while people now get into bed more readily and a lot more naturally than they once did, what happens there often seems less important.

We've got the most prosperous culture in human history and we've also got the biggest spiritual hole in human history. People are saying, "I can't fill the hole with money. I can't fill it with alcohol, or drugs, or sex, so what do I need to fill it with?"

What a strange world this is when you can have as much sex as you like but love is taboo.

Sex has become one of the most discussed subjects of modern times. The Victorians pretended it did not exist; the moderns pretend nothing else exists.

I think sex is completely absurdly demonized in our culture. But in the end, however much sex you want to have, with however many people in how many ways, to be loved and to love is what human beings really want.

As the new work fills my notebooks, I've come to realize that the characters in my stories were so real because I really did want to get close to people, I really did want to know them. It was just easier to do it on paper, one step removed.

Every third our fourth generation that comes along refuses to accept the way their parents and grandparents are living. They just don't want any part of it, and Millennials are doing that in a way. The Millennials, you talk to a lot of their parents, and they don't recognize 'em when they compare them to themselves.

The sexual revolution... it was the first time I had read anything that came close to describing those feelings of being outside of my body, feeling the shame, all of it, that I really was able to connect to in that book. So it sort of blew my mind. I was also listening to Tori Amos at the same time, so I was like, "Wait, what's happening?!" It was all a part of that, probably when I was, like, 13.

If you read my short stories, there's a lot of sex in those in all different ways. To me, it's a really good, useful thing to get to have in a story. And in a movie, it's amazing, because you actually get to show things.

The men of the past had convictions, while we moderns have only opinions.

Look, there's nothing wrong with people being happy, but there's more to life than turning on and screwing to Ravel's Bolero.

I try to find something that applies not to me only, but to others, but don't try to control it too much. Essentially it is about what moves us, teaches us about ourselves.

There's a whole generation growing up thinking you shouldn't seek knowledge for its own sake, and that theatre and art and books are activities that you do after-hours, rather than things that are at the heart of life. That's a huge change.

People knew less of each other, perhaps, but they felt more free of each other, and so were more individual. The entire world was not for them only a push or a switch away. Strangers were strange, and sometimes with an exciting, beautiful strangeness. It may be better for humanity that we should communicate more and more.

The part of the brain that is watching the television and is on the computer at the same time, preparing to jump onto the treadmill for 15 minutes, might be able to lead into sex, but it would be hard put to lead us to romance, or to real authentic human connection.

The search for freedom through sex is doomed to failure.

The truth hit him. Jason wasn't quite Roman anymore. His time at Camp Half-Blood had changed him. Reyna had recognized that. Apparently, so did the undead legionnaires. If Jason no longer gave off the right sort of vibe, or aura of a Roman leader.

To the Ancients, Friendship seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves... The modern world in comparison, ignores it.

The vast majority of us don't want to face the fact that we're in the middle of a sweeping social revolution. In sex. In spiritual values. In opposition to wars no one wants. In opposition to government big-brotherhood. In civil rights. In basic human goals. They're all facets of a general upheaval.

I'll tell you something. Once I was very fond of a poem by Emily Dickinson or somebody. I only remember one line of it, but it goes, 'The soul selects her own society.' I used to tell it to everybody. Once I quoted it to a friend of mine, and he said, 'Maybe, but the body gets thrown into bed with the goddamnedest people.

I think people often try to find through sex things that are much easier to find in other ways.

Wear your heart on the page, and people will read to find out how you solved being alive.

'I want to touch people but if I touch them in real life they'll slap me.' That's what writing isit's a gross person getting a hug.