Yes, because it seems to me that poetry cannot be hermetically closed to thinking. And thinking always enters the field of contradiction. So it also has to do with the way I try to reconcile poetry versus thinking. … I think you’re right that for many American poets, poetry is almost an escape from the cruelty of thinking, from the choices you make when you think. Escaping your life—which may be tragic, but it’s not problematic. So I see it differently, as a necessity to confront these categories.
What is something everyone in your world agrees about that you think is wrong?
Question
What are bad recommendations you hear in your profession or area of expertise?
Craft & work
Question
If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere, what would it say and why?
Time & hindsight
To me poor people are like bonsai trees. When you plant the best seed of the tallest tree in a flower-pot, you get a replica of the tallest tree, only inches tall. There is nothing wrong with the seed you planted, only the soil-base that is too inadequate. Poor people are bonsai people. There is nothing wrong in their seeds. Simply, society never gave them the base to grow on.
Nobel Peace Prize lecture, Oslo City Hall, The Nobel Foundation, 10 December 2006 source ↗
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Adam Zagajewski
Poet and essayist
Recorded
Brian Barker and Todd Samuelson, AGNI Online (Boston University), 25 April 2003
source ↗
David Vélez
Co-founder and chief executive of Nubank
I always say the Nubank story was very unlikely. It was a very low probability event. Again. We were going after these very big incumbent banks. Everybody told me, you know, you're Colombian. You have no idea what you're doing in Brazil. They're going to crush you. Like, don't. Just don't do it. And I did it mostly because everybody told me I couldn't do it. And so, if somebody tells me I can't do something, I want to go do it.
Recorded
John Waldron, Goldman Sachs Talks, Goldman Sachs (official event transcript)
source ↗
Marjane Satrapi
Graphic novelist, cartoonist and film director
Unfortunately. And it’s mostly a made-up story. It was incredible to see how it was created here. All over the news: Muslim rage or whatever. The rioting was not about being Muslim. These people have not been able to integrate. So if they have a crisis of identity, it’s forced upon them. If, after three generations of living in France, Arabs are still called Arabs and not French, then of course they will be angry. People ask why the Arabs don’t consider themselves French. Well, it’s because the French don’t consider them French. Then you had the Ministry of the Interior talking about cleaning the scum off the street. That doesn’t justify the violence—they don’t have the right to burn cities—but it explains what happened.
Recorded
Joshuah Bearman, A brasserie near her studio, Paris, The Believer, Issue 36, 1 August 2006
source ↗
Twyla Tharp
Choreographer, dancer and author
I already knew this, because I had been studying classical ballet for a long time. But a lot of people insisted on a wall between modern dance and ballet, that the two disciplines were totally separate, and if you did one, you couldn’t do the other. I’m beginning to think that walls are very unhealthy things.
More from Muhammad Yunus
View profile →I am in favor of strengthening the freedom of the market. At the same time, I am very unhappy about the conceptual restrictions imposed on the players in the market. This originates from the assumption that entrepreneurs are one-dimensional human beings, who are dedicated to one mission in their business lives − to maximize profit.
Recorded
Nobel Peace Prize lecture, Oslo City Hall, The Nobel Foundation, 10 December 2006
source ↗
In a poverty-free world, the only place you would be able to see poverty is in the poverty museums. When school children take a tour of the poverty museums, they would be horrified to see the misery and indignity that some human beings had to go through. They would blame their forefathers for tolerating this inhuman condition, which existed for so long, for so many people.
Recorded
Nobel Peace Prize lecture, Oslo City Hall, The Nobel Foundation, 10 December 2006
source ↗
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