
“Let me hold on to this the way it was, before I knew anything else.”
Source: How They Met, and Other Stories
QRO Magazine interview (2007)
Context: The first thing I did when I picked up any instrument, when I was five years old, was write a song. It's kind of funny; I thought about it, statements that it's a "solo effort" — it's kind of like, "Oh, well I've been doing this since I was five." I was kind of doing this before I did anything else.
“Let me hold on to this the way it was, before I knew anything else.”
Source: How They Met, and Other Stories
“Decorative and edifying. That is what I want art to be before anything else.”
as cited on Wikipedia: Maurice Denis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Denis - reference [41]
Nouvelles théories sur l'art moderne..., 1922
“I never did anything according to what anyone else wanted. That's why I think I am happy.”
Parade interview (2009)
Context: I never did anything according to what anyone else wanted. That's why I think I am happy. I do everything 100% — even my stupidest missteps. I know when I'm getting ready to mess up, I'm going to do it full-on.
"The Hard Kind of Courage" in Harper's (October 1958) republished as "A Fly in Buttermilk" in Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes of a Native Son (1961)
Source: Quotes, 1960 - 1970, Questions to Stella and Judd' - September 1966, p. 117
“I myself won't do anything, but I won't stop anyone else from acting.”
September 1938. Quoted in "Plotting Hitler's Death: The Story of German Resistance" - Page 128 - by Joachim C. Fest - 1997
“Happy endings are all I can do. I wouldn't know how to write anything else.”
Source: Romancing Mister Bridgerton