Top 73 Quotes by Margo Jefferson

About Margo Jefferson

These are some quotes by American author Margo Jefferson Critic, who was born on October 17, 1947.

I think it's too easy to recount your unhappy memories when you write about yourself. You bask in your own innocence. You revere your grief. You arrange your angers at their most becoming angles.

I think it's too easy to recount your unhappy memories when you write about yourself. You bask in your own innocence. You revere your grief. You arrange your angers at their most becoming angles.

Margo Jefferson

We have a myth of the classless society. You won't hear an American politician apart from Bernie Sanders talk about the working class. We are all middle class, apparently.

We have a myth of the classless society. You won't hear an American politician apart from Bernie Sanders talk about the working class. We are all middle class, apparently.

Margo Jefferson

Criticism does demand a certain kind of authority, but what about the authority of not really being sure what you think? What about the authority, the authenticity that comes from bringing all your intellectual, emotional and spiritual equipment to a piece of art or entertainment whilst still being uncertain and confused?

Margo Jefferson

For me, depression is very much tied to my feeling that so much is being asked of me. I have to 'perform' rather than necessarily be myself. I have to perform a perfect Margo Jefferson, at an impossibly high level.

Margo Jefferson

All readers are tourists. We want to make sense of what we see and hear, to find the balance between what is unknown and what we can call ours.

All readers are tourists. We want to make sense of what we see and hear, to find the balance between what is unknown and what we can call ours.

Margo Jefferson

New York, for decades, offered a perpetual series of 'golden ages' to artists. You constantly had to measure yourself against the best, and you had to watch them, which meant that your imagination and also your sense of what the market could stand got very, very sharp.

Margo Jefferson

Depression is so treacherous - it can be so alluring as well as punishing. After all, it's yours and yours alone - no one else can interfere with it.

Depression is so treacherous - it can be so alluring as well as punishing. After all, it's yours and yours alone - no one else can interfere with it.

Margo Jefferson

Sometimes it feels as if the artist hasn't done the real work of engaging with the material. Film noir can't just play off looks and attitudes. A thriller needs a dose of genuine suspense. It does not have to be literal, but it does have to feel genuine. Otherwise the artist is just leeching off the form.

Margo Jefferson

I resist lists. It must be all those 'Most Important' and 'Best of the Year' ones I compiled in my years as a beat critic. I often felt guilty about what I left out.

I resist lists. It must be all those 'Most Important' and 'Best of the Year' ones I compiled in my years as a beat critic. I often felt guilty about what I left out.

Margo Jefferson

Thank God for jazz. It gave black women what film and theater gave white women: a well-lighted space where they could play with roles and styles, conduct esthetic experiments and win money and praise.

Thank God for jazz. It gave black women what film and theater gave white women: a well-lighted space where they could play with roles and styles, conduct esthetic experiments and win money and praise.

Margo Jefferson

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