If there's hell below, we're all gonna go.
Curtis MayfieldRead
I was a very observant child. Almost anything could become a song to me.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the imaginative nature of a child's perception, where ordinary experiences inspire creativity.
Curtis Mayfield highlights the unique perspective of a child, illustrating how their observant nature allows them to see the beauty in everyday moments. This insight emphasizes the connection between observation and artistic expression, suggesting that creativity can arise from being attuned to one's surroundings and experiences.
In practice
In a presentation on creativity, you can share this quote to illustrate the importance of observation.
If there's hell below, we're all gonna go.
My teacher told me I'd never amount to anything. I left high school at 15, after one year. But my real teachers were all the people around me. And I was a good listener.
How many 54-year-old quadriplegics are putting albums out? You just have to deal with what you got, try to sustain yourself as best you can, and look to the things that you can do.
Reading the script, I started feeling very deeply bad for Freddie. Between his friends, his partners, and his woman, he was catching a hard time. 'Freddie's Dead' came to me immediately.
I don't like to appoint myself to nothing, knowing I'm no better than anybody else. But it always makes me feel good to know I try to do the best I can, and those who might observe say, 'Hey, I can take a little something from that person.'
Everything was a song. Every conversation, every personal hurt, every observance of people in stress, happiness and love... if you could feel it, I could feel it. And I could write a song about it.
I believe in broken, fractured, complicated narratives, but I believe in narratives as a vehicle for truth, not simply as a form of entertainment, though I love entertainment, but also a way of conveying what needs to be conveyed about the works that I care about.
Au revoir, jewelled alligators and white hotels, hallucinatory forests, farewell.
To finish a work? To finish a picture? What nonsense! To finish it means to be through with it, to kill it, to rid it of its soul, to give it its final blow the coup de grace for the painter as well as for the picture.
Great buildings, like great mountains, are the work of centuries.
I guess I've accepted that theatre is never going to be edgy in the way I want it to be. It's too expensive for a start. And, the audience seems to be complicit in the dullness.
I always tell aspiring documentary filmmakers, 'You have to go into it because you love it; if you go into it for the money, you're an idiot.' The number one prerequisite is you have to be intensely curious. If you love learning and trying to make people figure out what makes people tick, it's the best job in the world.
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