I'm not a politician because I'm an artist. Politicians have a very easy answer for a very complicated question. I have a very complicated question for what you consider very easy situations.
Interpretation
This quote expresses the difference between the simplicity of political solutions and the complex nature of artistic perspectives.
Marjane Satrapi's quote highlights the contrast between the brushstrokes of politicians, who often provide simplistic answers to multifaceted issues, and artists like herself, who delve into the complexities of life and society. She suggests that while politicians may simplify complicated questions for public consumption, artists seek deeper understanding and expression of those very complexities, often questioning societal norms and offering nuanced views that provoke thought and reflection.
In practice
In a discussion about the role of creativity in problem-solving, one might quote this to emphasize the depth of artistic thought.
It is dangerous when you start calling people from one part of the world terrorists or fanatic, and you reduce them to some abstract notion. If evil has a geographical place, and if the evil has a name, that is the beginning of fascism. Real life is not this way. You have fanatics and narrow-minded people everywhere.
If it's a good work of adaptation, the book should remain a book and the film should remain a film, and you should not necessarily read the book to see the film. If you do need that, then that means that it's a failure. That is what I think.
I'm not a politician. I don't know how to solve the problems of the world. But as an artist, I have one duty: to ask questions.
For me, drawing is a question of death and life. Every day I draw, I write, I do something.
My mother always told me I had to do 100 times better than a man. I had to work hard at maths, and learn four languages.
The best thing I ever did in my life was to ask, 'Do I like everybody?' And the answer was, 'No.' So why should everybody like me? If people are against me, so what? I'm against them too.
I believe the right question to ask, respecting all ornament, is simply this; was it done with enjoyment, was the carver happy while he was about it?
Cut word lines — Cut music lines — Smash the control images — Smash the control machine — Burn the books — Kill the priests — Kill! Kill! Kill!
I do believe that movies are subject to a million interpretations.
I'm a great poet. I don't put my poems on paper: they consist of actions and feelings.
The kinds of truth that art gives us many, many times are small truths. They don't have the resonance of an encyclical from the Pope stating an eternal truth, but they partake of the quality of eternity. There is a sort of timeless delight in them.
Conception, my boy, fundamental brain work, is what makes all the difference in art.
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