“I can sing about songs with gunshots in the background because I heard them. It's almost like my music has been a way to smoke out the hatred that's been bubbling underneath what's going on in Sri Lanka. If there's 300,000 people who are trapped and they're dying, it should be talked about, it should be brought to the table, and I don't see anything wrong in sticking up for 300,000 dying people.”

— M.I.A.

Video Interview http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1894410_1894780_1894784,00.html to TIME (2009)
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M.I.A. 38

British recording artist, songwriter, painter and director 1975

Raymond Smullyan (1919–2017) American mathematician

This Book Needs No Title (1986)

“My position has always been that there's two types of people opposed to pornography: those who don't know what they're talking about, and those who don't know what they're missing.”

Larry Flynt (1942) American publisher

The Henry Rollins Show, episode 313.

“No, I don't do that [sing about sex]. My music isn't forward like that. It's not sexual the way Britney's music is sexual. She feels comfortable singing about that, and that's fine, but I just don't talk about that kind of stuff, sorry. I just don't.”

Hilary Duff (1987) American actress and singer

“I know that people are interested, and I understand why, but I don't want that stuff to overshadow my life. It's just the way it is. I'm a singer, I'm in a band, I've been out with musicians, I've had children with two different musicians. To me, it's no big deal. I only get upset because I want people to listen to the songs. Listen to the LP or come and see my band. I don't like it when people write about my life and don't even mention the music.”

Lisa Moorish (1972) British singer

Source: " A life on the edge http://www.theguardian.com/music/2004/aug/20/popandrock8" at The Guardian, 20 August 2004

“[The country singer] sings more sincere than most entertainers, because the hillbilly was raised tougher than most entertainers. The people who has been raised something like the way the hillbilly has, knows what he is singing about and appreciates it. For what he is singing, is the hopes, and prayers, and dreams and experiences of what some call the "common people." I call them the "best people," because they are the ones that the world is made up most of. They're really the ones who make things tick, wherever they are in this country, or in other country.”

Hank Williams (1923–1953) American country music singer

“She was one of those people who say "I don't know anything about music really, but I know what I like."”

Max Beerbohm (1872–1956) English writer

Source: Zuleika Dobson http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/zdbsn11.txt (1911), Ch. IX

“I haven't heard them [n. d. r. he's talking about some Spanish popular folk songs] and probably never shall because I no longer go to the places where one could hear them, for I have got into my head that I should maintain a certain presence and air for dignity.... that a man should have, and you can imagine that I'm not very happy about it.”

Francisco De Goya (1746–1828) Spanish painter and printmaker (1746–1828)

letter 206, c. 1787; in Goya, A life in Letters, edited and introduced by Sarah Simmons; transl. Philip Troutman, London, Pimlico, 2004
Goya understands that the social role he has reached (he is royal painter from 1789) will prevent him from attending places where people sing http://letteraturaartistica.blogspot.nl/2015/09/goya-life-in-letters-edited-and.html
1780s

“All I feel are the assaults of apprehension and terror at the thought that I am the only one who is entirely unlike the rest. It is almost impossible for me to converse with other people. What should I talk about, how should I say it? - I don't know.”

Osamu Dazai book No Longer Human

Source: No Longer Human

“Me personally and professionally, I haven't been that outspoken about race and class, partly because it's in my work, but in part because I don't want to get hate mail. I'm sick of trying to talk to people. I don't think you can change people. I think people have to be forced to do the right thing, so I'm not interested in trying to change people's opinion. I can illuminate, and you can see if you like. And if you can't see it, then just go buy the next book. But I'm sorry, I'm no longer interested in trying to be nice about what is right, because that doesn't work.”

James McBride (writer) (1957) American journalist

On letting his work speak regarding race and class in “James McBride Says Fiction Writing Allows Him More Freedom” https://www.npr.org/2017/10/01/554933082/james-mcbride-says-fiction-writing-allows-him-more-freedom in NPR (2017 Oct 1)

“I can’t talk to you about music because you don’t know anything about music. I can talk to you about politics or sociology and all that peripheral stuff, but I can’t talk to you about music. There’s not enough information in common that I could say to you so you’d be able to understand. Besides, the people who read OUI don’t give a fuck about music anyway.”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer

Oui interview (1979)

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M.I.A. 38

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