American Arts Quotes

When you study our greatest artists, you will find that they give us a key to understand how to deal with each other, and that our bloodlines are intertwined. It's not hyphenated America. That there is an America, and it is expressed in those arts. It gives us a key to figure out how to negotiate with each other, and it tells us actually who we are.

I think the problem with the arts in America is how unimportant it seems to be in our educational system.

Film and TV are the most popular mediums in America. Literature and poetry are possibly the most under-recognized art forms.

No nation as young as America can be expected to become immediately a power in the arts.”

All the arts in America are a gigantic racket run by unscrupulous men for unhealthy women.

Americans, they have an incredible operatic tradition: the Metropolitan Opera House is - if not the most prestigious - one of the most prestigious opera houses in the world for over 100 years.

One challenge to the arts in America is the need to make the arts, especially the classic masterpieces, accessible and relevant to today's audience.

Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" is still in print. They're debating right now over Mark Twain. He's still available. Winslow Homer can still be seen. Our arts are - they're there. We got to go get them and understand that this is an important legacy for our country.

Until quite recently dance in America was the ragged Cinderella of the arts.

I have such respect for... the Kennedy Center Honors. To be an artist in America and to be honored for it is extraordinary. In Europe, they really honor their artists. And you are on a very high level. And here it's not as revered as it is in Europe or Russia or anywhere in the world.

The genius of our country is improvisation, and jazz reflects that. It's our great contribution to the arts.

My biggest inspiration is black America and what they've done in the arts. I have always felt like an outsider in America, and what black Americans have done to add their chapter to this book called the American dream, and to be so unapologetic and true, and have added so much to art and culture in the world.