Challenging Perceptions Quotes

When we create the right kind of identity, we can say things to the world around us that they don't actually believe makes sense. We can get them to do things that they don't think they can do.

I don't see myself as disabled. There's nothing I can't do that able-bodied athletes can do.

It was a scandal when I did French 'Playboy' in 2008, though I was never actually nude in it. I think it's really funny that I'll have a cover of 'Playboy' to show my grandkids.

I think there's a stereotype of what a biker is, and I think that's one of the reasons people are shocked when they find out that I ride. I've been trying to break down the stereotypes and inspire new riders.

When I made 'Vicky Donor,' people said it's not a family drama, it is for youngsters. But families also went and watched the film. Same happened with 'Piku' and 'October.'

Hopefully, the people that would look at a Good Charlotte record and dismiss it for maybe what they think is a certain kind of content, if they do discover something meaningful, then it's a nice surprise. I like those kinds of contradictions.

My music confuses people because they think I will sound a certain way because I look a certain way with the dreads.

An agent friend of mine who will remain nameless said you can't make a romance about homeless people; nobody wants to see them kiss. And I thought, what a repulsive, repugnant, extraordinary thing to say. I had to think about the fact that the world is probably full of other people who feel like that. The very idea that we spend time trying to humanize humans is extraordinary to me.

And a lesson in this movie is dig beneath the surface. And so with my words, with my character, I purposely created a character that was away from how you've known me thus far in my career.

'In the Cut' was not what readers expected of me. Before it was published, I was seen as a women's writer, which meant that I wrote movingly about flowers and children.

There's so much nonsense tossed around about L.A. and how horrible it is and 'don't go out there' and all that stuff. So I went out to L.A. and I was pleasantly surprised.

I've always wanted to play a normal woman, and I think I have been offered these parts where I play a kook because I'm not the idea of what a normal woman is.

Many people who I respected were disappointed when I started 'Wine Library TV.' They thought I was dumbing down wine, but I always knew I was one of the biggest producers of new wine drinkers in the world, and people are realizing it now.

I would love to break away from my comic image.

I sort of challenge people's perceptions of what a gay man is, which is kinda good.

Men in makeup is becoming more widely accepted. But it's going to take so much more open-mindedness to have it be a common thing.

Anything can be misinterpreted. People can look at Christ on a cross and think, This is an image of murder, this is violent, this has sexual imagery in it. And it just - I think it's my job as an artist to be out there pushing people's buttons and making them question everything.

When people tell me nothing has changed, I say come walk in my shoes and I will show you change.

As artists we are here to make you uncomfortable with the complexity of your reality.

The looks, the stares, the giggles . . . I wanted to show everybody that I could do better and also that I could read.

Part of my reason for 'Session 9' was to break out, to destroy the illusion of me as 'Mr. Romantic Comedy Guy.'

I know that there's a cultural expectation that women be nurturing, delicate flowers. And I am. So delicate. But that doesn't mean I can't write a good, gory murder scene.

I wanted to play a domestic help all my life... Because I wanted to break my image.

I've been kinda fascinated by misfits, outcasts, and downtrodden people. I've identified with them. 'Blade Runner' probably got me more work than any. It convinced some producers that I could play something other than a rural crazy, I guess.

Great art is always a way of concentrating, reinventing what is called fact, what we know of our existence- a reconcentration… tearing away the veils, the attitudes people acquire of their time and earlier time. Really good artists tear down those veils