Helen Oyeyemi Quotes

The man, the writer, the instrument of the creation will die, but his creation does not die.

You hope people are going to be listening to you after you're gone. And they like you better after you're gone.

Films and gramophone records, music, books and buildings show clearly how vigorously a man's life and work go on after his 'death,' whether we feel it or not, whether we are aware of the individual names or not. There is no such thing as death according to our view!

If somebody wants to sing my songs after I'm gone, nobody will be happier than my dead body.

I'd like to think I've left something in the world. Without in any way trying to be morbid, but life is very short, and I'd like to think I'd leave some body of work that would inspire other musicians long after I've gone.

Our lives are fictions, a work we leave behind, signed.

When I write a book, I hope to be beyond mortal by the time I'm finished.

Years from now, after I'm gone, someone will listen to what I've done and know I was here. They may not know or care who I was, but they'll hear my guitars speaking for me.

What we have as artists is the immortalization opportunity that others don't have, because our work is lasting; it's there forever to view.

I've achieved what every artist wants, which is that some of their work will outlive them.

I hope when I'm dead I'll be considered an icon, though.

It's funny the way most people love the dead. Once you are dead, you are made for life.

I don't really need to be remembered. I hope the music's remembered.

The thought that all experience will be lost at the moment of my death makes me feel pain and fear... What a waste, decades spent building up experience, only to throw it all away... We remedy this sadness by working. For example, by writing, painting, or building cities.

I truly believe the art's larger than the artist. Who cares about John Steinbeck? I care about the Joad family.

Biography is one of the new terrors of death.

Sooner or later I'm going to die, but I'm not going to retire.

Audiences aren't going to get rid of me. One thing I can say, with absolute certainty, is that my shows will still be performed when I'm dead, buried and forgotten. They're going to absolutely outlive me, which is a wonderful thing to think about.

When I'm dead, I wanna leave a body of work, like authors or great painters do.

Of all the delusions that existed, Posthumous Fame was the greatest.

It's funny how most people love the dead, once you're dead, you're made for life.

On the whole, books are indeed less finite than ourselves. Even the worst among them outlast their authors - mainly because they occupy a smaller amount of physical space than those who penned them. Often they sit on the shelves absorbing dust long after the writer himself has turned into a handful of dust.

Art goes beyond politics. Even if there are writers who are involved in politics, eventually, in one or two centuries, it's not their politics which is going to count, but the fact of having given life to feelings, of having created characters and made a living work of art.

Sometimes a famous subject may even outlive his own obituary writer.

I just hope that my films will survive me.