A Quote by Jesmyn Ward

As an artist, I feel a certain responsibility to write about difficult subject matter.

Jesmyn Ward

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About Artist Certain Difficult Feel Matter Responsibility Subject Subject Matter Write

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Jesmyn Ward
American - Novelist

I have a certain pool of subject matter that I like to write about, things that interest me: politics, religion, ecology, and relationships between men and women. And that's usually what I focus on.

Don Henley

It's quite difficult to write about female friendship without it seeming to be a very niche subject. It's a difficult balance.

Samantha Harvey

The funniest novel you've never read. . . . Afternoon Men is a revelation to sophisticated readers of every stripe, but especially to a certain kind of artist manqu on the brink of discovering that life is a more difficult business than he ever had reason to expect. . . . The subject matter is 'relatable,' as my students like to say. Better still, though, is what you can learn about the craft of writing from this marvelous book. . . . Indeed, if you're looking for a funny, nonportentous Hemingway, then the early Powell is your man.

Blake Bailey

I feel it's my social responsibility to shine a light on areas that don't get seen. My personal feeling is that it's an artist's responsibility to be engaged with the culture. And when the culture is going through turmoil, I think an artist can't ignore that. I don't feel that every artist has to be politically engaged, but I can't imagine that you can be an active participant of this culture and not in some way reflect that in the work you are creating.

Lynn Nottage

I write about what I want to write about, and so the film comes out as a very personal expression even if its subject matter is totally prefabricated.

Woody Allen

For me, no matter how serious the subject is, when I try to write about it, I have to write about it from a comic point of view. It's just the way it comes out.

Julie Davis

Whatever an artist's personal feelings are, as soon as an artist fills a certain area on the canvas or circumscribes it, he becomes historical. He acts from or upon other artists. An artist is someone who makes art too. He did not invent it. How it started — "to hell with it." It is obvious that it has no progress. The idea of space is given him to change if he can. The subject matter in the abstract is space. He fills it with an attitude. The attitude never comes from himself alone.

Willem de Kooning

Why was the painting made? What ideas of the artist can we sense? Can the personality and sensitivity of the artist be felt when studying the work? What is the artist telling us about his or her feelings about the subject? What response do I get from the message of the artist? Do I know the artist better because of the painting?

Gerald Brommer

One of the few ways I can almost be certain I'll understand something is by sitting down and writing about it. Because by forcing yourself to write about it and putting it down in words, you can't avoid having your say on the subject. You might be wrong, but you have to think about it very intensely to write about it.

Hunter S. Thompson

In terms of content, you can make a problem for yourself, I mean, make the contest difficult, let's say, with certain subject matter that is inherently dramatic.

Garry Winogrand

When me and my author friends who write about other difficult subject matter... when you hear from teens daily saying, 'Your book helped me or made me understand a friend better, what somebody else is going through,' you see the positive things.

Jay Asher

I don't write about sex because it's not really my subject. I love it when other people write about it, but it's not my subject, and I don't want anyone I've had sex with to write about it. Plus, you're in front of an audience, and they picture wherever you're writing about. I'm 52; no one in the audience wants to picture that.

David Sedaris

Well, the attractive thing about the subject of happiness is that it is notoriously difficult to write.

Edward St Aubyn

I'm self-deprecating, but I'm an artist, too. I have to write new songs to chronicle stuff for myself. I write a song like 'Middle Age' or 'Responsibility' or 'I Just Work Here,' and it's about how bleak life can be. But it's real.

Steve Forbert

Is it the responsibility of the colored artist or the ethnic artist to create works that are designed to exist in opposition to a certain political structure?

Kehinde Wiley

Giving oneself permission to write to begin with is the first enormous challenge. But you discover that this permission involves a requirement: To write about things that are difficult because they are, in fact, your subject.

Jonathan Galassi

A Quote by Jesmyn Ward

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