Lukas Foss Quotes

What I don't like is when people feel like they can box an artist into who they think an artist should be.

I mean people just have a way of - y'know they'll review your record in two sentences and put you in this little stupid box that you don't want to be in.

I hate labels; the problem is that if you say you're one thing, it's hard for people to imagine you as something else. Music is way more complicated than that.

I dislike when people try to pigeonhole me, when all I want is to do good work.

People did pigeonhole me.

They're never gonna not put you in a box. It's something that they have to do, because nine times out of 10 people don't understand creativity.

I was quite surprised how easily people wanted to pigeonhole things I've done.

We are too quick to put labels on things. It is my profession. I get up and paint. Everyone wants to put a label on it, but I am a free spirit, so I fight against that.

I wouldn't want to be just pigeonholed as an extravagant director.

I don't like labels. I think they conceal more than they reveal, sort of like a bikini.

We want to pigeonhole things and people, but it is absurd to regard me just as a furry wig-and-britches actor.

What I've run into more than anything is people who have a belief that they know who you are. Type-casting happens because people actually write you off. 'You are in this box. That's all you are; that's everything you are.' It's a very de-humanizing experience.

If you can't pigeon-hole yourself, who can you pigeon-hole?

From the moment you enter the league, everyone wants to slap a label on you - some tidy description of what they think you bring to the game. And more often than not, that tag sticks with you, regardless of whether it's accurate.

I think my whole career has been marked - or marred - by what people presume about me. But even that's fed back into the creativity. I'm saying that I'm about contradiction, that you can't put me into a box.

I don't think that there's much that sets me apart from other musicians, but I think there are definitely things that set me apart from other kinds of artists.

The one thing I will never do is become pigeonholed.

You don't have to fight against being placed in a box any more than the number two has to fight against being the number three. I mean, two is not going to be the number three, ever.

I personally am not interested in people trying to pigeonhole me.

Sometimes, you just get a label and it sticks.

People like to put you in a little box, and that's where they are comfortable with you being.

Stereotypes, they're sensual, cultural weapons. That's the way that we attack people. At an artistic level, stereotypes are terrible writing.

Never categorize yourself, society does that to you, don't do it to yourself.

People like to pigeonhole you.

I just feel as though it's become a situation where people have manifested this caricature of who I am, and they act as if there's no real person inside of it.