Unless a piece really said something, I had no interest in it. I have got to know that I have served some purpose here.
Interpretation
Art must convey a message or purpose for it to be meaningful.
Cicely Tyson emphasizes the importance of meaningful expression in art. For her, the true value of any artistic work lies in its ability to communicate a significant message or serve a purpose, highlighting the belief that art should not exist merely for decoration but to provoke thought and evoke emotion.
In practice
This quote can be used during an art critique to encourage deeper analysis of artworks.
How do you project a character if you don't have a sense of where she is from? I've always just gotten on a plane to go to the area to get a sense of what it is like, to smell it, feel the earth, hear people talk, go to the marketplaces.
I saw that I could not afford the luxury of just being an actress. So I made a choice to use my career as a platform to address the issues of the race I was born into.
I don't think you can measure wealth in dollars and cents. I really don't believe that at all because there are some things that money cannot buy. One of them is health. And the other is security in your relationships and friends.
One of the things I have always said about the man-woman relationship is that I don't want anybody to walk ahead of me, and I don't want anybody to walk behind me. I want a man who will walk along beside me. And that's how I feel about equal rights.
When I attack a role, be it TV, film or stage, the first thing I say is, I don't want to know anything. If it's good I don't want to hear it; if it's bad I don't want to hear it. The only thing either thing can do is distract me. I like to stay focused
We have to support our own films. If we don't, how can we expect others to support them?
The writer's job is not to write a novel, hold it up and say, βHere I am,β but to write a novel, hold it up and say, βHere YOU are.
I want to be an artist, an actress with integrity, and that includes all kinds of parts.
Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting.
Fashion needs fresh blood, and London is the most creative place for that.
In the best of all possible worlds, directors would obsess about the quality of their storytelling, and not the details of their technical methods.
The best poems take long journeys. I like poetry best that journeys--while remaining in the human scale--to the other world, which may be a place as easily overlooked as a bee's wing
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