David Hammons Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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I have been known as the minimal and conceptual artist for over five decades. I think I haven't changed much.
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When you are spiritually connected, you are not looking for occasions to be offended, and you are not judging and labeling others. You are in a state of grace in which you know you are connected to God and thus free from the effects of anyone or anything external to yourself.
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I hope to do multiple characters throughout my life that are separate from me. I think it's a cop-out if you play yourself in everything.
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Being a press secretary is like learning to type: You're hunting and pecking for a while and then you find yourself doing the touch system and don't realize it. You're speaking for the president without ever having to go to him.
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Sometimes you're going to have someone on your team who's just not comfortable with being open. You have to ask yourself, 'Is this person going to allow us to be a real team?' Maybe they're not right for your team. You have to be willing to lose someone sometimes.
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The snow goose need not bathe to make itself white. Neither need you do anything but be yourself.
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As a hip-hop artist who likes fashion, who can't help but notice people like Kanye West, Tiger, Big Sean and definitely T.I.P. These guys really understand how to be progressive and fashion forward.
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You don't want to love - your eternal and abnormal craving is to be loved. You aren't positive, you're negative. You absorb, absorb, as if you must fill yourself up with love, because you've got a shortage somewhere.
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I just like to explore all sorts of different forms - no, 'explore' is not even the word - enjoy. You don't want to limit yourself to a particular form.
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In a city, there's more room to be, where in a small town, you have to squish yourself down a little bit. And it's exciting for me to be pursuing a career where I don't have to be small.
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Just as theater has to be where people live, actors have to go out in the marketplace - not be cut off by a lens. Either an artist grows or he stagnates.
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A good artist should be isolated. If he isn't isolated, something is wrong.
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I don't believe you should make fun of anyone but yourself.
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I don't believe you can get into somebody's character but more that somebody comes in you. You just use yourself. In everything I play, I feel like it is me. I just say different things on different times and look different.
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When you betray somebody else, you also betray yourself.
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People make me key chains... someone attached a Dauntless symbol to a silver pen. That one is what I use to sign books. I use that a lot. I like to keep them around because they remind me that people are waiting for these books and that they really love them. It gives me motivation in those times when I'm not feeling very motivated.
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As an independent artist, you control the means of production, which is the ultimate form of empowerment.
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I'm somewhat of a hoarder. I keep everything.
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I'd spend every summer in Longview on my grandfather's farm. It was a tiny little town divided by a river, which was the segregation line: that side white, this side black. And meanwhile, I lived in Compton - basically, another whole world sealed into 10 square blocks. It's interesting how insular an environment can be.
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I like computers as a tool. I like them as an instrument. I think they're just pretty.
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The longer you get in a relationship, the harder it becomes to confront problems.
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As a child, I went to peace and ERA marches on the back of my mom and grandmother. Through them I learned that I wanted to find a way to make the world a more kind, compassionate place.
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Nature intends all men and women to be mental and spiritual giants, and does not intend that any one should follow the will of another.
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As an artist, you have to keep reinventing yourself.
