You are on the eve of a complete victory. You can't go wrong. The world is behind you.
Josephine BakerRead
A violinist had a violin, a painter his palette. All I had was myself. I was the instrument that I must care for.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of self-awareness and self-care in one's creative pursuits.
In this quote, Josephine Baker reflects on the essence of creativity and artistry by comparing herself to a violinist and a painter, highlighting that while they have specific tools for their craft, she views herself as her own instrument. This serves as a reminder that nurturing oneself is vital for expressing and executing one's artistic talents, suggesting that personal growth and care are foundational to creativity.
In practice
During a motivational speech about self-improvement.
You are on the eve of a complete victory. You can't go wrong. The world is behind you.
I ran away from St. Louis, and then I ran away from the United States, because of that terror of discrimination.
Friends, to me for years St. Louis represented a city of fear... humiliation... misery and terror... A city where in the eyes of the white man a Negro should know his place and had better stay in it.
I did take the blows [of life], but I took them with my chin up, in dignity, because I so profoundly love and respect humanity.
You must get an education. You must go to school, and you must learn to protect yourself. And you must learn to protect yourself with the pen, and not the gun.
I have walked into the palaces of kings and queens and into the houses of presidents. And much more.
[A writer is] a priest of eternal imagination, transmuting the daily bread of experience into the radiant body of everliving life.
To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event.
I tend to like strong female characters. It just interests me dramatically. A strong male character isn't interesting because it has been done and it's so cliched. A weak male character is interesting: somebody else hasn't done it a hundred times. A strong female character is still interesting to me because it hasn't been done all that much, finding the balance of femininity and strength. [From a 1986 Fangoria interview]
I haven't changed my mind about modernism from the first day I ever did it... It means integrity; it means honesty; it means the absence of sentimentality and the absence of nostalgia; it means simplicity; it means clarity. That's what modernism means to me.
Art is a never-ending dance of illusions.
If you truly love film, I think the healthiest thing to do is not read books on the subject. I prefer the glossy film magazines with their big color photos and gossip columns, or the National Enquirer. Such vulgarity is healthy and safe.
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