Harold Prince Quotes

In no way am I demeaning writing or any other form of art because it's popular. What I'm saying is that anything fed into the industrial machinery to comply with rules of size and length and shelf-life has a hard time surviving as art.

Trying to guess what the (mass) audience wants and then trying to satisfy that is usually a bad recipe for getting something good.

The danger for any artist whose work is both recognizable and critically acclaimed is complacent repetition - the temptation to churn out easily identifiable, eagerly welcomed, and readily salable designs.

I want to say 90% of stuff out there is just crap that got made. The main point is that it got produced.

One of my life philosophies is that you have a choice to make when you're doing something creative. You can be cheesy... or you can be lame.

Everyone pays lip service to this whole idea of doing more new plays, and nobody ever does it.

I am someone who pays attention to the currents that are going on socially in terms of what people want. When I catch wind of the types of matches people want, those are the matches I want, too.

The whole cast and creative team were definitely aware of the 'This is the death of Broadway!' kind of thing about 'SpongeBob,' but we've been really ready to change people's minds. I'm really proud of being part of something that took the most creative route to a commercial entity.

Irish poetry has lost the ready ear and the comforts of recognition. But we must go on. We must be true to our own minds.

I don't knock material rappers, but let me hear it in a different way. How many songs do I have to hear about rims on a car? It's ridiculous. There's no substance. It's a hollow shell.

If people really like your music but you're not selling so many records, I don't think it really matters.

I did two movies that were arthouse movies; they were critically successful but made no money at all... but after making those movies, I thought, 'I wouldn't watch my own movies when I was 16, and my buddies where I came from wouldn't watch my movies, because they were boring.'

I don't think that independent or off-beat films are not commercial, nor do I want to categorise them. At the end of the day, what matters is how much you compromise to please the masses. But, I am not someone who loves compromising. If there's a lot to give up on things that matter to me, I start losing interest.

Our society and media have lost touch with the job of the artist. The job of the artist has been subordinated to the job of the record seller.

As a young designer in tune with culture, I'm interested in the lifeline of trends.

Reviewers are entitled to say if they liked the screenplay, performance, and execution of a film or not. But when they say things like the film doesn't cater to a certain audience, it leaves people wondering if they should watch it.

With Netflix, we accept the democracy: not every show needs to be watched by everyone. And let's face it, we don't have time to watch everything. When will I sleep? I used to read and wash my hair. If TV gets any better, I'll have to give up work.

If you are working in a publicly subsidized building, then you have a responsibility to deliver truly interesting, risky, innovative, even provocative work. Work that speaks to your audience in many resonant ways. The priority is less about the financial rewards.

As an artist, I am here to get involved in meaningful films. But that does not mean only films like 'Arabikkadha' should be made. If you give an overdose of such films, the subject will become jaded.

I get very picky. There's sort of a line you have to walk between working and doing something you actually want to be a part of, as opposed to just working for the work. That often puts you in a place where you have to choose whether or not you want to wait for good material to come along.

Generally, I like people's trunk projects, the things they were working on before anyone knew who they were. I think when people run out of their trunk items and they start doing stuff just to do a film next year, the quality goes down, the interest goes down. Maybe it feels commercial or something.

I had to be honest in my songwriting for it to be where it is, and it's always scary wondering if anyone will connect with that.

I want to be associated with films that are content-oriented.

I think it was Roger Fry who first coined what he took to be a final definition of a work of art, whether it was a painting, building, poem or Hepplewhite chair. He said that the best works of art are finished products that preserve 'a valuable state of mind'.

All art is contemporary, if it's alive, and if it's not alive, what's the point of it?