Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The best people to have power are the ones who don't want it.
Power works best when it is indirect - never coercing people; instead, getting them to voluntarily align with your interests.
Never try to negotiate with anyone after he or she has eaten. People are best persuaded on an empty stomach. And forget power breakfasts. There is no convincing anyone of anything before 10 A.M.
Sometimes the very best way to deal with unpleasant things is to depict them in ways that allow people to laugh at them and destroy the power of unsayable things, rather than refusing to acknowledge them.
Back in the 1950s, America set out to intervene in Syria, liberate the people from a corrupt elite, and bring about a new democracy. They did this with the best of intentions, but it led to disaster. And out of that disaster, the Assad regime rose to power.
The power of your audience is in the hand of the artist now via all the media - Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and all of them - all of the new available techniques to get to people. I think that you are your best publicist and record company and everything right now when starting out.
I know many people on the left are suspicious of words like Americanization. To them, it can sound like a cover for white privilege and warmongering. It suggests arrogance and groupthink. But these connotations are not fixed. It is in our power to reshape them by recalling the best of America.