Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
My first job was when I was eight. I did this opera, which was a Robert Wilson/Philip Glass opera, called 'White Raven.' That was a very confusing and trippy creation tale, and I was a kid who brought up the sun and rotated the earth. It was very empowering.
I'd say I'm drawn to characters that ring true to me. Adolescence is a troubled time for everyone, so a lot of those characters have been troubled, tortured people. It's been a great way to navigate my adolescence by having these more troubled kids as an outlet.
I think a lot of people are projecting their own troubles and fears concerning sexuality onto those around them, and it does result in the perpetuation of a lot of hateful notions. As long as I can remember, I've felt really horrified watching those dynamics play out.
It disturbs me when Obama says in the State of the Union address that he wants to make dropping out of school at 18 illegal, because people learn differently and before there are forms of learning for every type of person in the world, we shouldn't be condemned for leaving.
Doing things like playing music, something that's so natural and basic to human function, running around in nature, eating delicious food. These things are intrinsic in basic, primordial to human beings, so that's sort of a way to return to a blank canvas, allowing my true personality to return.
I'm trying to grow more limbs in order to multitask at a greater rate and I'm also investigating the possibilities of cloning. Because nothing would be more useful than having multiples of me, and that way, I could do all of the things I'd like to do in the short amount of time we all have here.
For a long time I felt like I was fighting my age, like I was constantly trying to prove to people that I was a savvy peer, and I felt them viewing me as a kid. I was a cocky kid, and I felt like I was an adult at, like, 9, you know? I think that's because my parents always treated me as an adult.
New Jersey was actually a very cold place. There was such an intense concentration of wealth, and such a low concentration of any actual human happiness. A lot of people seem to be similar to the kid in school, which is doing a lot of things with no direct consequence to their joy, or their lives.
For a long time I felt like I was fighting my age, like I was constantly trying to prove to people that I was a savvy peer, and I felt them viewing me as a kid. I was a cocky kid, and I felt like I was an adult at, like, 9, you know? I think that’s because my parents always treated me as an adult.
Housing Works is the coolest thrift store in the world, because not only are they the best thrift store - they're not the most thrifty thrift store - but they have amazing stuff and all of their proceeds go directly to kids, mostly homeless kids, living with AIDS and HIV in New York, in the metropolitan area.
We’re not living in an age of no hope. We are living in the age of choice, which is much scarier. It means that what we do every day matters, which is always a bummer for humans. But it’s a great thing and it’s inspirational and we need to remember that. We have a long way to go and not a long time to get there.
I went to a school that was founded on a lot of very radical ideals of how education should be changed. But what's happening to schools like that sort of all over the country is in economic pressure they're becoming more and more preparatory because that's what people will really pay the money for private schooling for now.
It makes sense that we came up with our public school system during the Industrial Revolution because it's like everybody is a factory worker, eating their terrible food and going back to the room where you're silent and listening to an idiot. That's an epitomizing idea, getting called 'Nothing' for your whole high school experience.
Every teenager deals in his or her own sexuality and has to face it and figure out how it can coincide with the rest of their lives in a healthy manner. And try to navigate it in our modern society, which is wrought with stigma and taboo and repression, and sort of as a result, these inner monsters that some teenagers really struggle with.
The most important part of my practice as an artist has been remembering to stay humble. There is so much hurt, so much sorrow, so much pain in the world, and I think when you're born and bred into privilege, it's easier to have a closed perspective on things. But there's this opportunity that's open to all of us to let empathy connect us back to one another.
I think that artists don't make art - the art makes itself through us. I'm not the doer. I'm just along for the ride. Acting really reminds me of that because I don't write the words; I don't make the decisions. That's the director. Narcissism is a tragic condition. It must be so miserable to live trapped in a reflection that only includes the smallest version of our identities. Our true identities should have no bounds and no limits.
I genuinely think I have a hugging superpower. I'm starting to master the transformative hug. I have a strange memory ability. There's a lot of information that I don't cognitively know, but that seems to rise up at moments of need. That feels like a superpower. Something that nobody knows about me is that I discovered at a young age that I could sing in two tones. I don't do this in performance, because it's something very special to me. But I've learned that it's a practice that goes back far in time.
If there's any sort of superpower we desperately need right now, it's this transcendental force that reminds us of union and connection. I think that superhero stories come from somewhere. We make these aspirational images, to remind us that we have this capacity in ourselves already. I think that electricity can run through disconnected wires. Superheroes, every single one of them, come from the world of imagination and they're played by humans, they're written by humans, and it's in the belief that we invest in these characters that they come to life.