I'm not a politician because I'm an artist. Politicians have a very easy answer for a very complicated question. I have a very complicated question for what you consider very easy situations.
Interpretation
This quote expresses the difference between the simplicity of political solutions and the complex nature of artistic perspectives.
Marjane Satrapi's quote highlights the contrast between the brushstrokes of politicians, who often provide simplistic answers to multifaceted issues, and artists like herself, who delve into the complexities of life and society. She suggests that while politicians may simplify complicated questions for public consumption, artists seek deeper understanding and expression of those very complexities, often questioning societal norms and offering nuanced views that provoke thought and reflection.
In practice
In a discussion about the role of creativity in problem-solving, one might quote this to emphasize the depth of artistic thought.
It is dangerous when you start calling people from one part of the world terrorists or fanatic, and you reduce them to some abstract notion. If evil has a geographical place, and if the evil has a name, that is the beginning of fascism. Real life is not this way. You have fanatics and narrow-minded people everywhere.
If it's a good work of adaptation, the book should remain a book and the film should remain a film, and you should not necessarily read the book to see the film. If you do need that, then that means that it's a failure. That is what I think.
I'm not a politician. I don't know how to solve the problems of the world. But as an artist, I have one duty: to ask questions.
For me, drawing is a question of death and life. Every day I draw, I write, I do something.
My mother always told me I had to do 100 times better than a man. I had to work hard at maths, and learn four languages.
The best thing I ever did in my life was to ask, 'Do I like everybody?' And the answer was, 'No.' So why should everybody like me? If people are against me, so what? I'm against them too.
I have learned as much about writing about my people by listening to blues and jazz and spirituals as I have by reading novels.
I think we're going to enter a phase where there's less interest in the CGI and there's a demand for story again. I think we've dropped the ball a little bit on stories for the sake of the amazing toys that we've played with.
And, I mean, I think poetry does need to be met to some extent, especially, I guess, 19th century poetry, and for me, it's just been so worth the effort. It's like I'm planting a garden in my head.
A great building must begin with the unmeasurable, must go through measurable means when it is being designed and in the end must be unmeasurable.
Of the thousands of people, celebrated and unknown, who have sat before my camera, I am often asked who was the most difficult subject, or the easiest, or which picture is my favorite. This last question is like asking a mother which child she likes the most
I think it's great when stories are dark and strange and weirdly personal.
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