Quotes About Expression

Poems are always interested in what Ivan Illich called 'shadow work,' not least because that is no small part of their own way of working.

I don't work on poems and essays at once. They walk on different legs, speak with different tongues, draw from different parts of the psyche. Their paces are also different.

I don't believe artists should be subjected to experiences that harden the sensibilities; without sensibility no fine work can ever be done.

Music informs my work so intensely. The better actor I become, the better pianist I become, and vice versa.

Yeah, the actors really come in as lumps of clay. We're ready to work with the directors and find our way. These guys really come in having done their work.

I don't like literal spaces, I don't like literal anything. I still like some kind of guess work but some pieces work and they just pop.

As a designer you have to just do whatever you want to do. The second I came to terms with that, it transformed my work.

The worst thing is to be a designer and create work that isn't honest. You have to be honest. Otherwise, you'll always be a reaction to what other people do and you'll always be one step behind.

Cultivate everything the critics hated in your first work - that's what makes you unique.

Be a mere assistant to your unconscious. Do only half the work. The rest will do itself.

The only work of art which succeeds is that which fails.

I would like people to see my work as a rehabilitation of scorned values and, in any case, make no mistake about it, a work of ardent celebration.

I make movies just as painters paint: I work where I can.

That of War and Peace or of Almagestes. All are satisfactory. The only criterion of a work is its validity: that it should grip and that it should last.

I think there are some things in music that work and don't work. That's learned from counterpoint and rhythm and theory, and they don't work if you don't want them to work.

I always thought the story [Anthem] would work in three dimensions - and studying that cut material was very useful.

In the original novel [ Anthem], the story unfolds in the mind of a single character. Maybe that's why Ayn Rand called the work a poem.

When work resonates with a person, whether it is literature or film or music, then they want to know more about the artist. That's very natural.

To me, making records isn't work.

I don't think there is anything hard at all about having a lot of songs. It makes it easier to be less precious about them, and know that everybody's going to want to work on some of them.

I have always thought it was important to maintain some connection for myself to what it takes to make a song work by myself, to put a song across to an audience by myself.

To be in Brazil and see the work of Os Gêmeos or to be in England and see what Banksy is doing is pretty fascinating to me.

I'd love to work across all three fields - theatre, film and TV.

I wonder if novels work for women because they give us a safe place to talk about our ish.