Lin-Manuel Miranda Quotes

I personally made a decision many years ago that I wanted to crawl into portraiture because it had a lot of latitude.

Performance has to be mainstream art. This is what I'm fighting for.

The role of art in society differs for every artist.

I wanted to make films that were culturally relevant in my own country, that challenged people, and that people talked about.

Imagine if Lin-Manuel Miranda had tried to do 'Hamilton' first in Hollywood. They would have told him, 'The forefathers weren't Latino or black. They didn't speak in hip hop.' That would never had gotten going in Hollywood ever. But theater let Lin-Manuel him do it, and he created an incredible masterpiece.

What's incredible about 'Hamilton,' and the reason you can't get a ticket, is because everyone's responding to it. Everyone is seeing a bit of themselves in it.

Being a part of 'Hamilton' is remarkably special. It's a very powerful show that has spectacular emotional and political relevance.

The great thing about 'Hamilton,' for me, is so many people have been exposed to and are more open to hip-hop and certain artists, despite the stigma that had before been attached to it.

In China, we had some buildings that looked like the White House or wine bottles. All they seemed to represent was bad taste.

My work has always been the product of my time.

A poet must sing for his own people.

Those of us who work in the arts know that depiction is not endorsement. If it was, no artist would be able to paint inhumane practices, no author could write about them, and no filmmaker could delve into the thorny subjects of our time.

Popular music is all about traveling at the speed of you and elevating the individual as the highest thing in the world.

Modern art to me is nothing more than the expression of contemporary aims of the age that we're living in.

There's only a certain amount of works you can make, so you have to make only the ones you really want to make. It's all about trying to be as productive as possible.

One discards rhyme, not because one is incapable of rhyming neat, fleet, sweet, meet, treat, eat, feet but because there are certain emotions or energies which are nor represented by the over-familiar devices or patterns.

I think the problem for the future generations is a lot of people ain't takin' the time to look for galvanizing artists and give them their voice, so therefore for their voice to be heard, they gotta bang more pots on the ceiling, so to speak; they gotta do crazy things just to get recognized. I just feel that whenever you don't give a generation some kind of voice, then expect side effects.

I was judgmental of artists who were exploring their sexuality, and I thought, Why are they doing that? They don't have to. They've got a good voice.

The push and pull of representing your world responsibly and your artistic license is a tricky balance.

Decide for yourself what kind of works you want to create... facts, essays, poems - do you want to speak or to sing?

There is only one reason for art in America, and that is that the people of America learn the means of expressing themselves in their own time, and their own land.

Not even for a million dollars would I paint a tree.

I like the idea that [Mahatma] Gandhi is appearing now in an opera hall in all these different places, and people kind of think about it again.

What comes forth from you as an artist cannot be controlled. But you have responsibilities as a global citizen. Your history dictates your duty. And by writing about black people, you are not limiting yourself. The experiences of African-Americans are as wide open as God's closet.

It's not fiction's job to be photographically representative of reality. If I want to make a fictional world where there's no kindness, this doesn't mean I believe there's no kindness in the real world. In fact, what it may mean is that I very much value kindness. Like if you make a painting in which only greens are allowed, it wouldn't mean you don't believe in blue.