Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Hip hop music is important precisely because it sheds light on contemporary politics, history, and race. At its best, hip hop gives voice to marginal black youth we are not used to hearing from on such topics.
I was surprised how relevant the Moses story was to contemporary American debates - from our ongoing debate about values, to our role as champions of freedom, to our place as a country that welcome immigrants.
I grew up learning ballet, and then I took up contemporary as I got older. I probably thought I was going to be a ballet dancer when I was younger, but at a certain age, I really was more interested in acting.
Our contemporary analogues to the personal notebook now live on the web - communal, crowdsourced, and shared online in real time. Some of the most interesting and vital work I come across exists only in pixels.
The difference between a contemporary liberal and a socialist is that to a liberal the most beautiful word in the English language is 'forbidden', whereas to a socialist the most beautiful word is 'compulsory'.
On the one hand, we had great filmic spectacles that brought in big audiences, adults as well as primary and secondary school students. On the other hand, there were attempts to create contemporary Polish film.
Maya Angelou, the famous African American poet, historian, and civil rights activist who is hailed be many as one of the great voices of contemporary literature, believes a struggle only makes a person stronger.
I like contemporary, bare-boned writing. I don't like having the language that I barely understand get in the way of me interpreting it over to an audience. It's this barrier that I don't want to have to attack.
Her mother, Laurie Simmons, is a contemporary artist, and my stepmother, Cindy Sherman, is a photographer, so they've known each other forever. Lena and I were often at the same dinner parties when we were kids.
Perhaps the most pernicious strain of contemporary criticism says one thing before it says anything else, says it to whatever historical event or cultural happenstance is supposedly at issue: 'You can't fool me.'
Artists - musicians, painters, writers, poets - always seem to have had the most accurate perception of what is really going on around them, not the official version or the popular perception of contemporary life.
'Animal House' was sort of the first real, contemporary, youthful voice of the baby boom generation. It spoke to that audience, and it spoke to that part of me which was saying, 'Out with the old, in with the new.'
There is a kind of adventure- and risk-seeking audience in classical contemporary music that is really empowering and part of what draws me to it. The people that come to these concerts are open-minded and curious.
Those who are truly contemporary are those who neither perfectly coincide with their time nor adapt to its demands...Contemporariness, then, is that relationship with time that adheres to it through a disconnection.
I love novels, and I read them more than anything, but stories cut in sharp and hard and are able to reveal things in a different way: they're highly charged, a slightly newer form, and inherently more contemporary.
George's contribution to the great archive of contemporary music rests alongside the immortals. His is a legacy of unquestionable brilliance and one which will continue to shine and resonate for generations to come.
A lot of my work comes from what in Asia is called the 'mind of wonder.' There is not a lot of 'mind of wonder' writing in contemporary Western literature. I think that's what appeals to the readers who are my fans.
The futuristic city on 'Legends Walking's cover rejects any connection with the contemporary setting of 'Changer.' It was as if every effort was made to keep readers of 'Changer' from finding this stand-alone sequel.
Those who are truly contemporary are those who neither perfectly coincide with their time nor adapt to its demands... Contemporariness, then, is that relationship with time that adheres to it through a disconnection.
The novel that's contemporary in the sense of being wholly 'of now' is an impossibility, if only because novels may take years to write, so the 'now' with which they begin will be defunct by the time they're finished.
Theatre has always been better disposed to colourblind casting than telly or film. Given that most television is contemporary, and it reaches 56 million people, I am disappointed there still isn't more representation.
In a way, we tried to make 'The Salvation' a contemporary film with contemporary emotions. At the same time, in the script, you get a feel that all the small talk is not a part of our universe. It's more precise talk.
Before novels written by women were relegated to their own 'genre,' I was introduced to Jane Smiley by a dear professor who raised my awareness of what female authors were bringing to the table of contemporary fiction.
I start with theory rather than people. I don't like novels which have no theoretical or philosophical underpinning. I hate the contemporary novel where people just sit and talk to each other about their relationships.
I had read Harold Bloom's 'Where Shall Wisdom Be Found?' Late in his life, having read everything, Bloom asked which books had given him wisdom. I had just read a bunch of contemporary novels that had no wisdom for me.
I listen to either romantic classical music, Brahms or Beethoven or something like Mozart, or I go all the way contemporary and listen to Metallica or Adele, Radiohead, jazz, whatever it is that is completely opposite.
While 'The Endless Summer' poster was designed at the Art Center College of Design in the contemporary style of its time, the image grew out of my relationship with Rick Griffin and our deep relationship to surf images.
Sneakers are a new era. Anyone can feel new with a new pair of shoes. They make you feel contemporary. It's fun because I'm not a young designer, and it opens my brain. Hip-hop isn't just for the U.S. Everyone loves it.
Even in a manuscript form, 'The Girl on the Train' sort of leapt off the pages as a contemporary suspense drama-slash-thriller. It has all the mechanics of a thriller, but at the heart of it was a great character study.
The earliest phase of social formations found in historical as well as in contemporary social structures is this: a relatively small circle firmly closed against neighboring, strange, or in some way antagonistic circles.
In earlier cultures with pagan belief systems, light and dark were celebrated equally, people were around death a lot. In contemporary Western culture, we don't have that, and horror is a place you can be immersed in it.
I've been lucky to ride 10 different horses at the Olympics. I'd like to think that of all of them, Big Ben - who was inducted into the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame - would still be competitive in the contemporary sport.
In contemporary art culture, where good looks and clever strategic planning of art careers have become a feature, professional practice may be taught in art schools like a branch of public relations or political science.
I grew up in the church and loved contemporary Christian music. I go back to the early days of when it first started with the likes of Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith. Those people that really pioneered are heroes of mine.
'Once Upon a Time', 'Mirror Mirror' - those shows and films focus on women and their conflict with one another. What the heck is going on in contemporary fairy tales? Women are not dominating the world; they are not evil.
My background is somewhat unusual, as I trained to be a ballet dancer. I worked in the theatre for eight or nine years as a contemporary dancer. But as an actor one does read Shakespeare and does try to learn the classics.
Every artist wants to feel like they're still valid in a contemporary way. But you can't be so arrogant not to think that people who have thrown down their hard-earned money don't want to see and hear the things they want.
'Discipleship' as a term has lost its content, and this is one reason why it has been moved aside. I've tried to redeem the idea of discipleship, and I think it can be done; you have to get it out of the contemporary mode.
I was influenced by big, strong voices - writers like Elizabeth Bowen, Virginia Woolf, Jane Bowles; gay writers like Ed White, Michael Cunningham, Allen Hollinghurst; and contemporary lesbian writers, like Dorothy Allison.
I would really like to play someone contemporary, as I've done lots of period pieces. I would love to play an American bimbo or a grimy Londoner. But I'm probably more suited in people's minds to playing a corseted victim.
Wyndham Lewis is basically a pessimist, thinking of human beings as doomed animals or determinist machines. His theory of satire is based on this view, and he finds plenty of evidence to support it in contemporary practice.
For its speculations to be taken seriously, dystopian fiction must be part of a discussion of contemporary society, a projection of ongoing political failures perhaps, or the wringing of present jeopardy for future disaster.
For most Americans, poetry plays no role in their everyday lives. But also for most Americans, contemporary painting or jazz or sculpture play no role either. I'm not saying poetry is singled out as a special thing to ignore.
There's traditionally been a large disconnection in contemporary art between the audience and the artist. Generally, audiences are looking towards what they like, and I can tell you, that's the last thing on an artist's mind.
I've found contemporary Britain difficult to write about because it seems to me to have lacked gravity or grandeur. This is some cultural problem which I don't really understand. It simply isn't the same in the United States.
A book is sent out into the world, and there is no way of fully anticipating the responses it will elicit. Consider the responses called forth by the Bible, Homer, Shakespeare - let alone contemporary poetry or a modern novel.
I was looking at the work of the New York street artists and then discovering Basquiat and Haring after that and seeing how the contemporary art scene was, and then going back into Warhol and all that was happening in the 60s.
I don't know what issues concerning identity have helped contemporary fiction evolve to what it is now. All I know is that the range of voices that are being heard and published is a lot more diverse than when I was coming up.
Belief demands that you dispense with illusion after illusion, while contemporary common sense requires continual, fluffy pretending - pretending that might as well be systematic, it's so thoroughly incentivised by our culture.
I'm a contemporary artist with a bit of an unexpected background. I was in my 20s before I ever went to an art museum. I grew up in the middle of nowhere on a dirt road in rural Arkansas, an hour from the nearest movie theater.