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Emergency Fire Services
I come from a tradition of Irish artists where I am principally concerned with affecting my society. Artists are supposed to act as an emergency fire service when it comes to spiritual conflict — not preaching or telling people what to do but being a little light that tells us that there is a spirit world. That’s all anyone has to do.
— Sinead O’Connor
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…As soon as you have found the words with which to express something, you are no longer incoherent, you are no longer trapped by your own emotions, by your own experiences; you can describe them, you can tell them, you can bring them out of yourself and give them to somebody else. That is an enormously liberating experience, and it worries me that more and more people are learning not to use language; they’re giving in to the banalities of the television media and shrinking their vocabulary, shrinking their own way of using this fabulous tool that human beings have refined over so many centuries into this extremely sensitive instrument.
— Jeanette Winterson
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I think a sense of humor is a great cure. I’ve never seen a person with a sense of humor become a bigot. And I’ve never seen a fanatic with a sense of humor because owning it means being able to laugh at themselves…
