Garry Trudeau Quotes

Stuart was a very special person and he was miles ahead of everybody. You know as far as intelligent and artistic feelings are concerned, he was miles ahead. So I learned a lot from him and because in the '60s we had a very strange attitude towards being young, towards sex, towards everything.

Art should offend people because art should challenge people.

I think you don't do work for controversy alone, and whenever you do new work which people don't understand and they say it is done to create controversy.

If art is singular expression, then by nature, the best art is controversial. But when art stirs debate for reasons besides its artistic integrity, that's when things get bent.

We tried to make a movie that had sex and violence because we like sex and violence.

I never deliberately set out to shock, but when people don't walk out of my plays I think there is something wrong.

There's always that argument to make - that you're in better company historically if people don't understand what you're doing.

I think it's fantastic when the young enrage their elders. I really do believe that if it's too loud, you are indeed too old, and that if it has been standing for too long, it needs a thorough inspection.

I have a real interest in pushing some of the limits of things that studios don't want to make.

I don't have any interest in filmmakers making statements just for the sake of being provocative.

If you look at things historically, Kanye West has really represented the battering ram against political correctness.

Punk was such an exciting time because there were no rules. You could go and knock on Sun Ra's door - and he was in the phonebook, under Ra!

I know, when I look into the eyes of my own children, the look of wonder when I speak of life back in the '60s. That's why the Rolling Stones are such a hit even in their 60s, why Dennis Hopper is so compelling, even when he's making pitches for something unhip as long-term financial planning.

Is it possible to do something that that makes an audience uncomfortable, challenges them, makes them see things they're not used to? Here in these films [Salome the play and Salomaybe], I have the opportunity to say something about how I feel about things.

You can find truly original pieces of writing, but they're original because you go, "Who would have even have thought of that?," or, "Why would anyone ever want to go see that?"

That was always what I felt was the beauty of Rock 'n' Roll, it was entertainment and showbiz yet it had the idea of the voice of the people, it had an essence to it which was socially motivated. Not that I want to change to world, you know? But it was sort of relevant to real life, it involved the real essence of poetry or the real essence of fine art. But it was also entertainment. That was the real vitality.

It was a wonderful time to be young. The 1960s didn't end until about 1976. We all believed in Make Love Not War - we were idealistic innocents, darling, despite the drugs and sex. We were sweet lovely people who wanted to throw out all the staid institutions who placed money and wars above all else. When you're young you think that's how life works. None of us were famous, we were broke. We didn't think they'd be writing books about us in 30 years. We were just kids doing the right thing.

The neglected legacy of the Sixties is just this: unabashed moral certitude, and the purity -- the incredibly outgoing energy -- of righteous rage.

He found it was as easy to hurl beauty as anything else. (On Robert Mapplethorpe)

Going to America increased the build up on me, especially as the war was going on there. In a way we'd turned out to be a Trojan horse. The 'Fab Four' moved right to the top and then sang about drugs and sex and then I got into more and more heavy stuff and that's when they started dropping us.

I really feel that artists or musicians are controversial people. Controversy is part of the nature of art and creativity. If people are not doing that, they're not artists - they're artisans.

Artists are the gate keepers of truth. We are civilization’s radical voice.

Rock'n'roll is not red carpets and MySpace friends, rock'n'roll is dangerous and should piss people off

What gets called 'the sixties' left a mixed legacy and a lot of divides. But it opened everything to question, and what seems the most fundamental and most pervasive in all the ensuing changes is the loss of faith in authority: the authority of government, of science, of patriarchy, of progress, of capitalism, of violence, of whiteness.

Art has an obligation to offend