As a child, I was subjected to a lot of spaghetti Westerns and hated them. I wanted the Indians to win - or just not be so sad!

The silhouette says a lot with very little information, but that's also what the stereotype does.

There's no diploma in the world that declares you as an artist—it's not like becoming a doctor. You can declare yourself an artist and then figure out how to be an artist.

Silhouettes are reductions, and racial stereotypes are also reductions of actual human beings.

If you're a Black artist, you could paint a wall of smiley faces, and someone will still ask you, 'Why are you so angry?'

Im not really about blackness, per se, but about blackness and whiteness, and what they mean and how they interact with one another and what power is all about.

I think really the whole problem with racism and its continuing legacy in this country is that we simply love it. Who would we be without the 'struggle?'

I don't think that my work is actually effectively dealing with history. I think of my work as subsumed by history or consumed by history.

Humor's always been the problem of my work, hasn't it? When working, I feel satisfied when I surprise myself. And when I surprise myself, I wind up laughing.

The promise of any artwork is that it can hold us - viewer and maker - in a conflicted or contestable space, without real-world injury or loss.

I have no interest in making a work that doesn't elicit a feeling.

A literary academic can no more pass a bookstore than an alcoholic can pass a bar.

Aura, " he whispered, "I wish I could wipe away just one of your tears. Then I'dfeel like a person again. Like I'm something more than a bunch of light.

In a world that has ceased to believe in sin, the artist is responsible for the preaching.

The casualities seemed to go on and on. Just when I thought I was done losing her, I would find yet another way to love her all over again.

Affliction is the school in which great virtues are acquired, in which great characters are formed.

You members of this Conference are to be the architects of the better world. In your hands rests our future.

What I didn't realize when I was in school and what I suspect a lot of young writers today don't get either is that you have to create the world that you want to exist in as an artist.

I graduated from high school with the art award and I had made a ton of short films, but it was before DVDs with director commentary.

What one tries to force into a child against its own nature will never come to good.

Time's glory is to command contending kings, To unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light.