I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go.
Langston HughesRead
An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose.
Interpretation
Artists have the freedom to make choices in their work, and they should embrace those choices without fear.
This quote by Langston Hughes emphasizes the dual responsibility of artists: the freedom to select their creative expressions and the courage to follow through on their choices. It suggests that true artistic expression requires not just autonomy but also the bravery to explore one's creative instincts, even if they challenge convention or provoke criticism.
In practice
In a talk about creative processes, you might use this quote to inspire other artists to embrace their unique visions.
I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go.
My writing has been largely concerned with the depicting of Negro life in America.
I tire so of hearing people say, Let things take their course. Tomorrow is another day. I do not need my freedom when I'm dead. I cannot live on tomorrow's bread.
The calm, Cool face of the river, Asked me for a kiss
The only way to get a thing done is to start to do it, then keep on doing it, and finally you'll finish it.
Most musicians remain poor. But the music that they make, even if it does not bring them millions, gives millions of people happiness.
...it is seldom indeed that a composition which was poor when the picture was taken can be improved by reshaping it in the dark room.
Birds in flight fascinate me. I admire eagles and falcons. Iβm inspired by a feather but also its color, its graphics, its weightlessness and its engineering. Itβs so elaborate. In fact I try and transpose the beauty of a bird to women.
I wept when the muse Ulla bent over me. Blinded by tears I could not prevent her from kissing me, I could not prevent the Muse from giving me that terrible kiss. All of you who have ever been kissed by the Muse will surely understand that Oskar, once branded by that kiss, was condemned to take back the drum he had rejected years before, the drum he had buried in the sand of Sapse Cemetery.
I needed my life as a springboard for my fiction. I have to have something solid under my feet when I write. I'm not a fantasist. I bounce up and down on the diving board, and I go into the water of fiction. But I've got to begin in life so I can pump life into it throughout.
A writer should not run around with a mirror for his countrymen; he should tell his society and his times things no one ever thought before.
When I'm dying, I want to think I did what I felt was best for the words I was writing. This may mean, at any time, that I won't be publishable anymore.
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