A Quote by Katherine Dunn

From the time I was little, I'd been kind of freaked out by the whole deal with large groups of people. And even moderate - sized groups of people. It's always made me very uncomfortable. It's such a strange phenomenon, what happens to people when they're all moving in the same direction, all chanting the same tune, the same line of slogans or something. That stuff always seems very alien and bizarre to me, and kind of scary.
I never think of people's nationality too much. I always look at everybody the same. It's impossible for me to just say one group of people over separate groups of people. Maybe it's because I was raised in New York City which is this melting pot. Everybody was always the same and the whole point of my whole film existence was to say that we're just one race.
I think the media in general hasn't been very kind to fat women or fat people. We see so many insensitive portrayals of plus-sized people. That kind of stuff really affected me - not even necessarily the portrayal of fat people, but the absence of fat people.
Moving to San Francisco affected me in a pretty profound way, in a lot of respects. I think it helped me evolve my sound and think outside of the space I'd been in in Sacramento. The scene there is so insular and kind of feeds on itself: you just end up playing the same shows with the same people for the same people.
I'm very wary of large groups of people getting together and trying to believe the same thing. It never seems to end well, whether it's political or religious or whatever.
We have mirror neurons that mirror other human beings. In other words, if I'm smiling it tends to make other people with me smile also. Whether I'm happy or lonely, I will tend to have happy or lonely friends. The same thing happens with actions; if I make an act of generosity it tends to be passed on down through society. So I see small groups as being very important in having an effect on large groups.
I have kept diaries, of course, but they can't be read for quite a long time. I'm always curious about people who are fascinated by writers' lives. It seems to me that we're always in our books, quite nakedly. I wonder, too, does the private life really matter? Who cares what is known about you and what isn't? Even when you make public something that's been private, most people don't get it - not unless they're the same generation and have gone through more or less the same experiences. So, in a sense, we're all private, by definition.
I've been very lucky in that the studios really respect me and they give me all my creative freedom. But nevertheless, they are inputs, they have opinions. It's the same thing for me as if you're in a shower and you're coming up with a tune, with a melody, but there are 70 people trying to sing their own melody at the same time. So you have to focus and concentrate, and not lose the track of your melody.
For me, we're all comfortable, we're all happy, hopefully, but at the same time something will happen and you have to kind of understand that phenomenon. You have to understand what's going on and I've always been fascinated by craziness and lunacy.
I've been approached after shows from people who said, 'I don't agree with anything you said, but I laughed the whole way through.' That's still a little strange to me. Like, nothing, really? But at the same time, that's what happens in a conversation.
Unfortunately, Trump has showed hateful inclinations toward many, many groups. Many groups. The most obvious: undocumented immigrants and Muslims. His comments that I've seen that he's made about Jewish people, about black people - they're all very troubling to me - even though he sort of said, "Oh, I distance myself from hate and don't do any of this hating stuff."
When you're working with the same band you kind of know their style inside out, and even when you've been working for seven years with the same people, suddenly they'll do something you didn't even think they were capable of.
A bunch of people are gonna be mad at me, I’ve got some kind of medical issue that’s going to kill me in a while if I don’t deal with it, oh, and the island’s blowing up tomorrow and taking a whole lot of the country with it if I don’t fix it.” Thomas gave me a steady look. “So,” he said. “Same old, same old.
I love Billy Wilder, and I love the way that his films can be very touching and very moving and very romantic, and at the same time there's always a little cynical undertone, there's always something that undercuts things.
People who are happy with their neighborhoods in New York always say the same thing: 'It's such a neighborhood!' And that's how we feel about Carroll Gardens. We see all the same people who have been there a long time and are very friendly and welcoming to us.
I believe there is some kind of magic that comes just from looking at somebody. In the beginning, I called it "Genius" in a very cynical way. Then I started to look at real geniuses in history and all of them have the same expression, of something very bitter. It's bitter because they have this kind of knowledge that they cannot share. They don't have the time or energy to deal with other people.
I think people perceive my creatures as absurd because they look different, but at the same time, they are a little bit familiar. I want people to feel a kind of empathy with them. When you think about it, all nature is kind of strange looking.. in fact, I'm a strange a looking creature.
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