Bei Dao Quotes
Being a poet in the States is quite different from being one in China, because in the States poetry depends on the universities for its support. They finance the poets and help them get published. That isn't so in China. But overall it is the same. You can't change society with poetry.
Quotes to Explore
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I suppose illustration tends to live in the streets, rather than in the hermetically sealed atmosphere of the museum, and consequently it has come to be taken less seriously.
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I don't hurt or want for visibility, but people seem to forget pretty easily.
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If I was a bajillionaire, I would spend a lot of time at Barneys just buying all kinds of great things all the time. I would have so many black cashmeres it would be out of control. I like the way nice things feel very much.
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You have to enjoy it. It is not going to happen every year, so this is the year that it is happening and we have got to go out there and enjoy it.
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I think success happens when it's supposed to and when you can appreciate it. I am grateful that it didn't happen for me at 22 or 23. I would've been foolish enough to think that we're all entitled to it, instead of it being the divine blessing that it is.
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Acting is a life experience. I'm always learning things when I'm making a movie. So the fame part of it is fine when you consider what you get out of this job.
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If you're beautiful, you're led to believe that you can't also be smart.
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I've written a screenplay that is a series of monologues and songs; they form this sort of human tapestry across time and place. The form is strange, but I find it really fascinating.
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Rain is good for me. I feel like I achieve clarity actually when it rains. The longer I have to sit and wait, the clearer my game becomes to me.
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I want to teach. I've got to figure a way to continue doing this in some capacity.
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My music is the most 'me' thing about me. Everything is in my music.
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I think life is always dangerous. Some people get afraid of it. Some people don't go forward. But some people, if they want to achieve their goal, they have to go. They have to move... We have seen the barbaric situation of the 21st century in Swat. So why should I be afraid now?
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Different times need different types of leadership.
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It's always hard to deal with injuries mentally, but I like to think about it as a new beginning. I can't change what happened, so the focus needs to go toward healing and coming back stronger than before.
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I've done hundreds of interviews on guns. I'm against people who use guns. I don't like guns, but I've never yelled at anyone.
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I'm not terribly confrontational, but I've gotten better at holding my ground.
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Anyone who thinks there's safety in numbers hasn't looked at the stock market pages.
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Writers, actors, anybody working on an ensemble-type thing, there are going to be some creaks in the beginning. It seems like there's tremendous potential in just letting things sort of breathe a little bit. It's tremendously important.
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My drawing, like that of most cartoonists, is intended first of all to be functional: to create believable space and communicate information. My strongest point in drawing has always been my ability to show characters' nonverbal communication through facial expression and posture.
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After silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.
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Pleasure causes us to do base actions and pain causes us to abstain from doing noble actions.
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All things considered, I could never have survived my youth without Wagnerian music. For I seemed condemned to the society of Germans. If a man wishes to rid himself of a feeling of unbearable oppression, he may have to take to hashish. Well, I had to take to Wagner...
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Is it not a terrible thing to be forced by society to do things which all of us as individuals regard as abominable crimes?
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Being a poet in the States is quite different from being one in China, because in the States poetry depends on the universities for its support. They finance the poets and help them get published. That isn't so in China. But overall it is the same. You can't change society with poetry.
