______
“If a song’s about something I’ve experienced or that could’ve happened to me, it’s good. But if it’s alien to me, I couldn’t lend anything to it. Because that’s what soul is about — just living and having to get along.”
— Aretha Franklin
Singer, born 1942
______
“The epithet American-Jewish writer has no meaning for me. If I’m not an American, I’m nothing.”
— Philip Roth
Author, born 1933
______
“When you are faced with the possibility of an early death, it makes you realize that life is worth living and that there are a lot of things you want to do.”
— Stephen Hawking
Physicist and author, born 1942
______
“Everyone thinks they can write a play; you just write down what happened to you. But the art of it is drawing from all the moments of your life.”
— Neil Simon
Playwright, born 1927
______
“There are three ways to make it in Hollywood. You can become an ‘actor’ — a guy with things standing out in his neck — or you can become a personality, or you can become a star. I always wanted to be all three.”
— Burt Reynolds
Actor, born 1936
______
“Some people like to paint trees. I like to paint love. I find it more meaningful than painting trees.”
— Robert Indiana
Artist, born 1928
______
“I get my energy, I think, from being afraid to choreograph, being afraid to fail.”
— Paul Taylor
Choreographer, born 1930
______
“I wanted the reader to feel we were all friends, that we were sharing some private fun that the outside world wasn’t aware of.”
— Stan Lee
Author and publisher, born 1922
______
“I think surprise is a wonderful emotion.”
— Ricky Jay
Magician, actor and author, born 1946
______
Unhappiness where’s when I was young And we didn’t give a damn ‘Cause we were raised To see life as fun and take it if we can
— Dolores O’Riordan, “Ode to My Family,” the Cranberries, 1994
Musician, born 1971
______
“The kitchen at best is like a submarine or pirate group. It’s very high pressure, and a sense of humor is absolutely necessary.”
— Anthony Bourdain
Chef and journalist, born 1956
______
“Acting’s fun, but life’s more important."
— Margot Kidder
Actress, born 1948
______
“I recognized what I always look for in a true artist’s work, which is quality of technique, of ideas — and a unique, personal vocabulary of form."
— Phyllis Kind
Art dealer, born 1933
______
“It never came to mind: ‘Maybe I’m not good enough.’ I never thought like that. I always thought, ‘Yes, I am good enough,’ or ‘I can be good enough.'"
— Roy Hargrove
Musician, born 1969
______
“The more you create, the more you realize that it’s about more than just making good songs.”
— Mac Miller
Rapper, born 1992
______
“What I am doing is creating a language. A different American language.”
— Cecil Taylor
Musician, born 1929
______
“Less is a bore.”
— Robert Venturi
Architect, born 1925
______
“When I thought of making a film in any country but mine, I found I could only do it in the United States. In any other country you are always a foreigner. Here, after one week you are an American."
— Milos Forman
Director, born 1932
______
“I was immersed in music from the beginning, and it never occurred to me that not everybody thought it was the most important thing in life.”
— Oliver Knussen
Composer, born 1952
______
“Casting is sort of like looking at paintings. You don’t know what you’ll like, but you recognize it when you see it."
— Steven Bochco
Producer, born 1943
______
“I thought nonfiction gave one a chance to explore the world, the other world, the world one didn’t know fully."
— V.S. Naipaul
Author, born 1932
______
“Music is part of life. It is not the real life. I belong to that first: family, children. The important things.”
— Montserrat Caballé
Singer, born 1933
______
“Singing, to me, is such a healing thing. It’s just part of my body; it’s part of what I do."
— Marin Mazzie
Actress, born 1960
______
“The myth was that because you were black that you could not do classical dance. I proved that to be wrong.”
— Arthur Mitchell
Dancer, born 1934
______
“Simplicity of shape does not necessarily equate with simplicity of experience."
— Robert Morris
Artist, born 1931
______
“Theater saves people’s lives, and it’s wonderful."
— Jan Maxwell
Actress, born 1956
______
“Screenplays are structure. That’s all they are. They are not art, they are carpentry."
— William Goldman
Screenwriter, born 1931
______
“There are two of you — one who wants to write and one who doesn’t. The one who wants to write better keep tricking the one who doesn’t.”
— María Irene Fornés
Playwright, born 1930
______
“Part of the punk experience, for me, was that you could play to your strengths and make your weaknesses virtues."
— Pete Shelley
Musician, born 1955
______
“I’m a firm believer that language and how we use language determines how we act, and how we act then determines our lives and other people’s lives.”
— Ntozake Shange
Playwright, born 1948
______
“Don’t shove me into your damn pigeonhole, where I don’t fit, because I’m all over. My tentacles are coming out of the pigeonhole in all directions.”
— Ursula K. Le Guin
Author, born 1929
______
“I don’t have a scrap more talent than so many actors in Chicago. I just happened to be blessed by being lucky."
— John Mahoney
Actor, born 1940
______
“I’m a director. I’m a woman. But to classify man-directors, woman-directors — can’t we just say director?”
— Penny Marshall
Actress and director, born 1943
______
“Even if I lived a hundred lives, I still wouldn’t be exhausted."
— Claude Lanzmann
Director and author, born 1925
______
“I found early in the game that for me there’s no use trying to blend in.”
— Tom Wolfe
Author, born 1930
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.