John Edgar Wideman Quotes
What basketball expresses is what jazz expresses. Certain cultural predispositions to make art. All African-American art has a substratum, or baseline, of improvisation and spontaneity. You find that in both basketball and jazz.
Quotes to Explore
-
To be honest, it's easier for me to speak with an American accent.
-
I know from my own experience that great films and great actors can have a really big influence on you. There is a place for art in the world, and if you're lucky enough to be good at something and to keep being given work, it's not such a bad thing.
-
The most important thing Paris gave me was a perspective on Latin America. It taught me the differences between Latin America and Europe and among the Latin American countries themselves through the Latins I met there.
-
Much of the conventional wisdom associated with Vietnam was highly inaccurate. Far from an inevitable result of the imperative to contain communism, the war was only made possible through lies and deceptions aimed at the American public, Congress, and members of Lyndon Johnson's own administration.
-
A fighter lives in his training camp, and I'm not always paying attention to what is happening on the outside. But I do know the Mexican people and the Mexican-American people in this country are very hard-working people. That's my only comment about Donald Trump.
-
There's nothing more American than movies.
-
Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun.
-
I can only speak as an American, but most journalism here isn't doing its job any more. It's about selling stuff.
-
I was always trying - I never wanted to let my fans down; I always wanted them to see me in my art form.
-
A performance art piece is unprecedented. It is difficult to censor since it has a good possibility of never being done before.
-
The average American worker has fifty interruptions a day, of which seventy percent have nothing to do with work.
-
I'd like to do some crazy art installations and design some weird synthesizers and work with other people and make some fun stuff for a bit. Maybe tap into virtual reality stuff or maybe write another record... We'll see.
-
I don't attempt to make people uncomfortable; I think that my standards in terms of art and journalism always have necessitated my discomfort.
-
One of the things that I like about 'Narcos' is that not only Pablo but with all the characters - this is not a black and white show. This is not a regular American cop show where two cool cops go to save a country from a bad guy. All the characters are very complex.
-
I never wanted to be a public figure. I feel that I always have to dampen down people's expectations. They expect me to be an oracle, wave a magic wand, sprinkle some slow, sparkly dust on them, to make everything all right.
-
Art is the lie that enables us to realize the truth.
-
Very few people possess true artistic ability. It is therefore both unseemly and unproductive to irritate the situation by making an effort. If you have a burning, restless urge to write or paint, simply eat something sweet and the feeling will pass.
-
So the American government lied to the Native Americans for many, many years, and then President Clinton lied about a relationship, and everyone was surprised! A little naive, I feel!
-
Politics is the art of realizing what there is to realize.
-
I have met charming people, lots who would be charming if they hadn't got a complex about the British and everyone has pleasant and cheerful manners and I like most of the American voices. On the other hand I don't believe they have any God and their hats are frightful. On balance I prefer the Arabs.
-
A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner: Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time. When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, The one I feed the most.
-
Central to achieving progress in Afghanistan - and to setting the conditions necessary to transition security tasks from the international community to the Afghan government - is increasing the size and capability of ANSF.
-
I've always believed free will is a birthright. God even allows us to choose whether to be led by the divine order.
-
What basketball expresses is what jazz expresses. Certain cultural predispositions to make art. All African-American art has a substratum, or baseline, of improvisation and spontaneity. You find that in both basketball and jazz.
