Your demons will cause your angels to sing. Use the pain as fuel.
August WilsonRead
Jazz in itself is not struggling. That is, the music itself is not struggling... It's the attitude that's in trouble. My plays insist that we should not forget or toss away our history.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes that the essence of jazz is not flawed, but rather, it is the mindset surrounding it that faces challenges.
August Wilson asserts that while jazz music itself is a rich and vibrant expression, the struggles lie in the attitudes and perspectives of people regarding it. He highlights the importance of recognizing and valuing one's history, suggesting that a lack of understanding or appreciation for our past can lead to misguided views on artistic forms like jazz.
Themes
JazzMusicAttitudeHistoryArt
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used during a speech at a jazz festival to highlight the importance of music history.
More from August Wilson
All quotes βI think the blues is the best literature that we as blacks have created since we've been here. I call it our 'sacred book.' What I've attempted to do is to mine that field, to mine those cultural ideas and attitudes and give them to my characters.
August WilsonRead
All you need in the world is love and laughter. That's all anybody needs. To have love in one hand and laughter in the other.
August WilsonRead
I do - very specifically, I remember Bessie Smith; I used to collect 78 records that I would buy from the St Vincent de Paul store at five cents apiece, and I did this indiscriminately. I would just take whatever was there. And I listened to Patti Page and Walter Huston, 'September Song.'
August WilsonRead
I know some things when I start. I know, let's say, that the play is going to be a 1970s or a 1930s play, and it's going to be about a piano, but that's it. I slowly discover who the characters are as I go along.
August WilsonRead
When I first started writing plays I couldn't write good dialogue because I didn't respect how black people talked. I thought that in order to make art out of their dialogue I had to change it, make it into something different. Once I learned to value and respect my characters, I could really hear them. I let them start talking.
August WilsonRead
Similar quotes
I can't change the fact that my paintings don't sell. But the time will come when people will recognize that they are worth more than the value of the paints used in the picture.
Vincent Van GoghRead
Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute. Mere words! Was there anything so real as words?
Oscar WildeRead
Not all poetry wants to be storytelling. And not all storytelling wants to be poetry. But great storytellers and great poets share something in common: They had something to say, and did.
Sarah KayRead
I like my music with the rinds and the seeds and pulp left in.
Tom WaitsRead
All of the films that I've made are about the country I live in and grew up in... And I think if you're going to put an artist's eye to it, you're going to put a critical eye to it. I've always been interested in the gray area that exists between the black and white, or the red and blue, and that's where complexity lies.
Robert RedfordRead
Filmmaking creates a sort of - trust, maybe. It has led me to a group of people I feel good with. We have something in common because of film, when otherwise we might have nothing.
Claire DenisRead