I was raised around a lot of artists, musicians, photographers, painters and people that were in theater. Just having the art-communal hippie experience as a child, there wasn't a clear line that was drawn. We celebrated creative experience and creat...
When I was 12, I played the Artful Dodger in Cameron McKintosh's production of 'Oliver!' when it came to Toronto. Just getting the role shocked my whole family, and I don't think I realized until then just how much I loved getting up in front of peop...
I was born and grew up in Phoenix, and I left there when I was 17 to go to Interlochen Arts Academy - a boarding school in Michigan - for a year, and then I went to college for a year at The Boston Conservatory and landed the 'Spring Awakening' tour ...
It is a very great mistake, and a very common one, even for well-read persons, to adopt the idea that the progress of the human race in the science of government, in the arts of civilization and refinement, and in the establishment of morality and re...
Toronto is a special city, and the environment is perfect for the arts; free and alive. I'm a New Yorker, and Toronto reminds me of a much cleaner New York, so it's like coming home after your mom just cleaned your room for you; for me that's a lovel...
The arts community is generally dominated by liberals because if you are concerned mainly with painting or sculpture, you don't have time to study how the world works. And if you have no understanding of economics, strategy, history and politics, the...
It was something I was more interested in myself. When I went to see my sister dance at ballet, I was really into costumes and the arts, and my family was also supportive of whatever me and my sister wanted to do. I would say I pushed myself the most...
For some students, especially in the sciences, the knowledge gained in college may be directly relevant to graduate study. For almost all students, a liberal arts education works in subtle ways to create a web of knowledge that will illumine problems...
I'm really careful about not slamming my politics home in my shows, but I don't try to hide, either. The arts can be a great way to bring people together. I don't preach from the stage. I try to stay positive on solutions.
My mother was Irish; she had this great sense of humor, and both my parents loved films. There was a very vibrant discourse about politics and everything that was going on in the world where I grew up. So I was genetically predisposed to go into the ...
As far as Saddam Hussein being a great military strategist, he is neither a strategist, nor is he schooled in the operational arts, nor is he a tactician, nor is he a general, nor is he a soldier. Other than that, he's a great military man, I want yo...
I think opera has gained a kind of glamorous appeal. It's a live performance that aligns all of the arts, and when it is represented in the media, in film in particular, it is presented as something that is really a special event, whether it's a grea...
As a father, I always want my son to be perfect. When he was young, I tried to train him in martial arts, but he said, 'I don't want to become like Bruce Lee's son, with everybody telling me how good my father was.' I just think my son is too lazy.
Some go on to trade schools or get further training for jobs they are interested in. Some go into the arts, some are craftsmen, some take a little time out to travel, and some start their own businesses. But our graduates find and work at what they w...
And regardless of the fact that in this country, certainly in the arts, we treat comedy as a second-class citizen, I've never thought of it that way. I've always thought it to be important. The last time I looked, the Greeks were holding up two masks...
Creativity is contagious. And so is banality. Criticism is an art in itself. Don’t let the dullness around destroy the creativity within. T.S. Eliot said, “honest criticism and sensitive appreciation is directed not upon the poet but upon the poe...
I can only speak for myself, but public school did nothing for me musically. I got the impression a musical career was frowned upon. But in the arts, resistance can often be the strongest inspiration.
I always told the people at Cal Arts that if they wanted me to do Jazz studies, first of all, there couldn't be a big band within 500 miles and that I could do what I wanted to do. And they said I could.
Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument. To perform this difficult office it is sometimes necessary for him to sacrifice happiness and everything that makes life worth living for the ordinary human being.
Like most arts, the link between the mind and the pen can chain you like an enslaved workaholic. Even on an intended vacation you suddenly have this killer urge to record whatever the vacation may teach.
People think that the arts are optional and they aren't. They teach a level of emotional depth that's equally important to mathematic skill. You can replace some math skills with a calculator if you know how to operate the thing, but there's no calcu...
