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.
Quotes to Explore
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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.
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Honor wears different coats to different eyes.
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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?
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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.
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The responsibility of an artist is to be honest with themselves.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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We're never so vulnerable than when we trust someone - but paradoxically, if we cannot trust, neither can we find love or joy.
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I am not a hero but the brave men who died deserved this honor.
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Only a bad artist thinks he has a good idea. A good artist does not need anything.
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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.
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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.
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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.'
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I blame feminism and Facebook for the death of the American automobile. I'm a Republican, so I blame everything on feminism - or commies.
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If any artist abuses his audience as a means to any end, noble or ignoble, he better have a damn good reason for it.
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Though ambition in itself is a vice, yet it is often the parent of virtues.
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The most vulnerable people have tough exteriors because they are very scared inside, and it's very hard for people like that - people like me - to open up. But playing it safe means you stop being open to learning. I always try to find the challenges.
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We as artists cannot be politicians. We as artists can only be truth-tellers.
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The attempt to silence a man is the greatest honor you can bestow on him. It means that you recognize his superiority to yourself.
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When you turn on your radio, you don't always want to hear about someone shootin' some person. Even if that's the lifestyle they live, people don't always want to hear it.
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All my brother Eliot and I did as kids was film sketches.
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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.
