Sufjan Stevens Quotes

I'm being explicit about really horrifying experiences in my life, but my hope has always been to be responsible as an artist and to avoid indulging in my misery, or to come off as an exhibitionist. I don't want to make the listener complicit in my vulnerable prose poem of depression, I just want to honor the experience. I'm not the victim here, and I'm not seeking other peoples' sympathy. I don't blame my parents, they did the best they could.

Sufjan Stevens

• Artist
• Honor
• Parent
• Blame
• Misery
• Vulnerable

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Quotes to Explore

• Few words in any language carry such a load of meaning as 'honor.' It is an old word, unchanged even in its spelling from classical Latin to modern English. Spoken or written, it does not seem to require much explanation; most people think they know what it means.

  

  Edmund Morgan
  • People
  • Words
  • English

• Honor wears different coats to different eyes.

  

  Barbara Tuchman
  • Different
  • Eyes
  • Honor

• We always knew how to honor fallen soldiers. They were killed for our sake, they went out on our mission. But how are we to mourn a random man killed in a terrorist attack while sitting in a cafe? How do you mourn a housewife who got on a bus and never returned?

  

  A. B. Yehoshua
  • Man
  • Honor
  • Random

• Literary dementia seems dated now, but there was a time when a month in the funny farm was as de rigueur for budding writers as an M.F.A. is now. To be sent away was a badge of honor; to undergo electroshock, a glorious martyrdom.

  

  Walter Kirn
  • Time
  • Funny
  • Honor

• The responsibility of an artist is to be honest with themselves.

  

  Talib Kweli Black Star
  • Responsibility
  • Artist

• But we must not, if we are loyal, disperse our energies in a partisan warfare that is waged without regard to its consequences to the well being, security, or honor of the country.

  

  Bainbridge Colby
  • Country
  • Honor
  • Security

• I have to take it as a given that I have got a certain ability to do something. I can be an artist, which is take something and transform it into another thing. I can just see something, and I can see my painting.

  

  Gary Hume
  • Artist
  • Painting
  • See

• Our first manager really pushed that we not sell our publishing rights, which is one of the earliest things an artist will do: They'll sell in order to get a cash advance.

  

  Isaac Hanson Hanson
  • Artist
  • Rights
  • Manager

• I started recording because I was always complaining about the records that I was getting of my songs. At least if I did them and messed them up, I wouldn't have anyone else to blame.

  

  Randy Newman
  • Up
  • Always
  • Blame

• We're never so vulnerable than when we trust someone - but paradoxically, if we cannot trust, neither can we find love or joy.

  

  Walter Anderson
  • Love
  • Joy
  • Trust

• I am not a hero but the brave men who died deserved this honor.

  

  Ira Hayes
  • Men
  • Honor
  • Hero

• Only a bad artist thinks he has a good idea. A good artist does not need anything.

  

  Ad Reinhardt
  • Good
  • Bad
  • Artist

• If success attends my steps, honor and glory await my name-if defeat, still shall it be said we died like brave men, and conferred honor, even in death, on the American Name.

  

  Zebulon Pike
  • Men
  • American
  • Death

• I've been recording audiobooks for more than 30 years. I've recorded over 500 titles on all sort of things. I'm a sort of genre-free recording artist - classics and romances, I just finished a sci-fi book, self help... just all kinds of things.

  

  Barbara Rosenblat
  • Book
  • Help
  • Free

• Before I was a cosplayer, I was a fan artist. I would draw my favorite characters and sell the pieces at art auctions. But once I discovered cosplay, it was like, 'I don't have to draw my favorite characters, I can become my favorite characters.'

  

  Yaya Han
  • Art
  • Like
  • Artist

• I blame feminism and Facebook for the death of the American automobile. I'm a Republican, so I blame everything on feminism - or commies.

  

  P. J. O'Rourke
  • American
  • Death
  • Blame

• If any artist abuses his audience as a means to any end, noble or ignoble, he better have a damn good reason for it.

  

  Walter Becker China Crisis
  • Good
  • Artist
  • End

• Though ambition in itself is a vice, yet it is often the parent of virtues.

  

  Quintilian
  • Ambition
  • Parent
  • Often

• Dance on, dance on, we see, we seeYouth goes, alack, and with it glee,A boy the old man ne’er can be;Maternal thirty scarce can findThe sweet sixteen long left behind.

  

  Arthur Hugh Clough
  • Long
  • Dance
  • Boy

• God forbid that Truth should be confined to Mathematical Demonstration!

  

  William Blake
  • God
  • Truth
  • Demonstration

• The one who admonishes his brother secretly, he has advised sincerely and has honored him. If he does it outwardly (among others) then he has dishonored and shamed him.

  

  Al-Shafi‘i
  • Brother
  • Honored
  • Advised

• History tells us that revolution is not an isolated event because it is not about overthrowing governments, it is about spreading new ideas.

  

  Colin Falconer
  • History
  • Ideas
  • Revolution

• I'm being explicit about really horrifying experiences in my life, but my hope has always been to be responsible as an artist and to avoid indulging in my misery, or to come off as an exhibitionist. I don't want to make the listener complicit in my vulnerable prose poem of depression, I just want to honor the experience. I'm not the victim here, and I'm not seeking other peoples' sympathy. I don't blame my parents, they did the best they could.

  

  Sufjan Stevens
  • Artist
  • Honor
  • Parent