Boots Riley (Raymond Lawrence Riley) Quotes
I wanted to write a song about sexism, but I didn't want to do it in a mechanical way and be like, "Don't be sexist!" because that's not how I talk in regular life.
Quotes to Explore
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I wanted to make Canadian films, and I ended up making American films.
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When I'm writing, I look like a fool because the parts are moving through me and I'm crying and laughing and making faces.
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When people come to Twitter and they want to express something in the world, the technology fades away. It's them writing a simple message and them knowing that people are going to see it.
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On a very personal level, I have fond memories of spending a lot of time in the Library of Congress working on my collection of poems 'Native Guard.' I was there over a summer doing research in the archives and then writing in the reading room at the Jefferson building.
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I became what I wanted to be.
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Whosoever, in writing a modern history, shall follow truth too near the heels, it may happily strike out his teeth.
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I had a novel in the back of my mind when I won an Ian St James story competition in 1993. At the award ceremony an agent asked me if I was writing a novel. I showed her four or five chapters of what would become 'Behind the Scenes at the Museum' and to my surprise she auctioned them off.
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Music can be such a vulnerable thing, so when you're delivering a vocal or writing a piece of music, it's easy to get sideways.
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If you start off writing an album with a band, the reality is that you're constantly in each other's company, so it's really important that you get on with each other.
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People shout out for songs and I don't even remember writing them.
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And I love writing. I've always loved writing.
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I've had battles with writers who live in L.A. and were writing southern characters, because they felt like if they wrote 'Sugar' and 'Honey' at the end of every sentence, that would make it southern.
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I have been taking voice and singing lessons since age 10 and originally got into it because I was really interested in musical theater. After writing my first couple of songs and performing at age 14, I knew that I really wanted to be a singer.
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I'd like to be writing songs for other people - I just like writing songs.
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I tried writing a novel, but plays were the thing that kept feeding me, asking me to come back, sit down and be with them.
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My life has two modes. One is sitting around writing and contemplating or building things. The other is execution mode. It takes a while to switch from one to the other.
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Writing works when publications are writing and serving the best interest of their users; numbers are good yardstick but not a way to compensate a person.
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I write the occasional entry for the 'Times' Theatre blog, especially when I'm in London and seeing two shows a day, but I don't tweet. I don't want to have to express my opinion in 140 characters. That's like writing haiku. You need a certain amount of legroom to review a play properly.
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I began doing writing projects and art and design projects to explore a new way of seeing Canada. Roots is one more way of continuing this exploration. I want to present a wide-open Canadian sense of color, adventure, communication and openness that defines our country.
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I carry a notebook and write down things to do, and I write out thoughts and stuff like that.
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The spiritual always did exist, always will. It is eternal, it is changeless.
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I think we are drawn to anti-heroes because that is what most of us are most of the time and it is good to see that we are heroic.
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There was no measure that required greater caution or more severe scrutiny than one to impose taxes or raise a loan, be the form what it may. I hold that government has no right to do either, except when the public service makes it imperiously necessary, and then only to the extent that it requires.
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I wanted to write a song about sexism, but I didn't want to do it in a mechanical way and be like, "Don't be sexist!" because that's not how I talk in regular life.
