A Quote by Ayn Rand
I got the idea [for Anthem's theme] in my school days, in Soviet Russia, when I heard all the vicious attacks on individualism, and asked myself what the world would be like if men lost the word 'I.'
Related Quotes
The red directors were one of the main political forces. Another force was the former Soviet ministers who lost everything because of the transformation of the Soviet Union to Russia.
The British press isn't as vicious as it used to be, and these days it's sort of cool to care again. Everyone loves an everyman anthem.
We the Living is not a novel 'about Soviet Russia.' It is a novel about Man against the State. Its basic theme is the sanctity of human life - using the word 'sanctity' not in a mystical sense, but in the sense of 'supreme value.'
I argued for years to have the Canadian anthem played at the US Open Racquetball Championship and on the 11th year, I got it. I teared up a bit when I heard the anthem. It was a highlight of my career, better than some of my wins.
If a life can have a 'theme-song' - and I believe every worthwhile one has - mine is [best] expressed in one word: Individualism.
If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent If the unheard, unspoken Word is unspoken, unheard; Still is the spoken word, the Word unheard, The Word without a word, the Word within The world and for the world; And the light shone in the darkness and Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled About the center of the silent Word. Oh my people, what have I done unto thee. Where shall the word be found, where shall the word Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence
I wouldn't even go into the history of the last days of the Soviet Union, the withdrawal from Europe, and what promises were given at that time, because those were oral promises, and our leaders of that time strongly believe that, like in ancient Russia, a word given is better than any treaty.
25 million of Russian people suddenly turned out to be outside the borders of the Russian Federation. They used to live in one state; the Soviet Union has traditionally been called Russia, the Soviet Russia, and it was the great Russia. Then the Soviet Union suddenly fell apart, in fact, overnight, and it turned out that in the former Soviet Union republics there were 25 million Russians. They used to live in one country and suddenly found themselves abroad. Can you imagine how many problems came out?
A vicious teacher is just a vicious teacher, as a vicious neighbor may happen to be. But a vicious mother - means that the whole world is vicious.
By May, 1st, 1937, there should not be one single church left within the borders of Soviet Russia, and the idea of God will have been banished from the Soviet Union as a remnant of the Middle Ages, which has been used for the purpose of oppressing the working classes.
This much I would say: Socialism has failed all over the world. In the eighties, I would hear every day that there is no inflation in the Soviet Union, there is no poverty in the Soviet Union, there is no unemployment in the Soviet Union. And now we find that, due to Socialism, there is no Soviet Union!
When I first heard from my manager, who asked me, 'There's this Disney 'Mulan,' do you want to audition for it?' I'd heard that so many people were auditioning. So, I asked myself what I could bring.
People sometimes ask: Is Putin a clever man? Yes, he's clever in his own way, when it comes to political intrigue, and he's got a good head for numbers. But as soon as he took office, the first thing he did was to institute a new anthem based on the old Soviet one; that was a very major step, not a petty issue. He began at once to appeal to people's basest instincts. It is true that people in Russia are used to obedience.
Jumping twenty or so years later, Ann Ciccolella, artistic director of Austin Shakespeare, approached me with the idea of staging Anthem. She had heard my film score to Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life. And she said, I want to do Anthem as an oratorio. Well, I figured what she meant was a straight play with music.
The Democrat Party of the 1980s chose the Soviet Union over Ronald Reagan, in Nicaragua, and in Moscow as well. Now, all of a sudden, they don't like Russia and they don't like the Soviet Union?
You know, Russia brings it on. People don't want to be Russia hawk. People would like - that's what the president always says: We would like to get along with Russia. But what Russia is doing makes it really hard.
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