Painful Truth famous quotes

Average real wages in Mexican manufacturing are lower than they were 10 years ago, if you can believe that.

I never had the sense of myself as an accomplished artist, and I always had to work three times as hard as anyone else to make mypieces as good as they could be. I am never completely satisfied. There always seems to be something just beyond my reach.

Not all, but too many of the best writers, composers, and artists of our time begin to be acclaimed only when they no longer have anything to say and take to performing instead of stating.

A snob is that man or woman who is always pretending to be something better--especially richer or more fashionable--than he is.

I think what really separates artists from the rest of the world is that artists feel like they have permission to keep exploring and expressing their process. Most people censor that because they don't think it's good enough. Everything is measured against this patriarchal hierarchy of value, as if one person's singing voice is more important than another's.

I think people try to make the most of their time on earth and also to fix their time on earth. They try to fix external verities, things that are true for all time, ideas that are true for all time: Rome will last forever! America will last forever! Beauty, as defined by the fashion industry, is one of those things—this is beautiful. This will always be beautiful—and hold it in a way that has some sense of permanence about it, and absoluteness. And yet it’s not.

Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people.

Reputation is what others perceive you as being, and their opinion may be right or wrong. Character, however, is what you really are, and nobody truly knows that but you. But you are what matters most.

I'd rather live on my own than live with a face that looks at me with the wrong eyes.

I wasn't good enough. I had a little talent but not enough. There is nothing more discouraging than having just a little talent.