I think that we need to make it our goal to define freedom for ourselves.

It's hard for black women to ask for help. We think we don't need it. We're used to being in pain and living with it.

I think sometimes the stars align whether we want them to or not. And we're drawn to certain people and places for no other reason than...Destiny.

We kind of have to rewrite our own stories and our own ways of being free.

We can look at history and see that [political turmoil is] fertile ground for art.

Sometimes I feel as though I'm trying to take a hit for the team so that other people then can move forward. I'm like, "Look, I just laid out all of my stuff, so what's the worst that can happen?".

In my experience when I do try to avoid something, it makes its way into the work anyway. To be in front of it and just make friends with it is easier for me.

Аrt movements are always linked to some kind of turmoil.

I really hope that people feel permission to talk about their own troubles, but also to celebrate themselves.

Sometimes it's just rejecting stereotypes, sometimes it's creating work. Sometimes it's just blocking out the noise.

I also think that [political turmoil] gives artists something, a way of kind of processing.

Pat Conroy embraced his new hometown with the grateful passion of a refugee.

Nobody is so weird others can't identify with them.

If this was what caring about someone was like, what the hell was he supposed to do? Because he couldn’t handle it, couldn’t live like this.

Good spectator sports share certain fundamentals. Their competitors battle head-to-head. Their winners are determined objectively: fastest runner, most points. They are refereed, not judged.

The amount you laugh in your relationships with others is the true measure of the health of your personality.

Shoot what you can't help but shoot

Admirals and Generals always want more ships and more weapons and they take the arguments where they can find them.

How beautifully everything is arranged by Nature; as soon as a child enters the world, it finds a mother ready to take care of it.

This is one image. This is one moment. This is one statement. ARTPOP

When I stopped seeing my mother with the eyes of a child, I saw the woman who helped me give birth to myself.