February 25: Notable Births and Deaths, with Quotes

Let’s explore notable birth and death anniversaries for February 25.

Rashida Jones, actress and producer (February 25, 1976–present)

“I think if I’ve done one thing in my life, it’s that I choose well. That I’m smart to be around people who are better than me.” —Rashida Jones
Creeden, Molly. “Rashida Jones Feels It All.” Harper’s Bazaar, October 5, 2020, https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a34050256/rashida-jones-interview-2020/.

“Women of a certain generation have been sold a little bit of a lie that they can have it all, and I bought into that.” —Rashida Jones
Creeden, Molly. “Rashida Jones Feels It All.” Harper’s Bazaar, October 5, 2020, https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a34050256/rashida-jones-interview-2020/.

“It took me a long time to separate my identity from my parents. It didn’t really happen to me until my 30s, because I love them so much, they’re so cool, and I didn’t want to be separate from them. But there’s a natural order where you absolutely have to do that to be a person in the world—and really to be a parent. It’s biological: I have to protect this thing that I created.” —Rashida Jones
Creeden, Molly. “Rashida Jones Feels It All.” Harper’s Bazaar, October 5, 2020, https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a34050256/rashida-jones-interview-2020/.

Tennessee Williams, playwright (March 26, 1911–February 25, 1983)

“I do believe sexual energy often goes into creative energy. Creative energy is not lost as rapidly as sexual energy.” —Tennessee Williams
Calendo, John. “New Again: Tennessee Williams.” Interview, June 4, 2014, https://www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/new-again-tennessee-williams.

“I think I draw every character out of my very multiple split personality. My heroines always express the climate of my interior world at the time in which those characters were created.” —Tennessee Williams
Calendo, John. “New Again: Tennessee Williams.” Interview, June 4, 2014, https://www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/new-again-tennessee-williams.

“‘The Glass Menagerie’ was the most awful travesty of the play I’ve ever seen. I hope to God it’s never released again. I hope it will be made again, though, as a new film. But it was horribly mangled by the people who did the film script. Gertrude Lawrence couldn’t play the part. She tried, poor thing. She’s talented but she didn’t have the adequate direction.” —Tennessee Williams
Calendo, John. “New Again: Tennessee Williams.” Interview, June 4, 2014, https://www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/new-again-tennessee-williams.

Mark Rothko, artist (September 25, 1903–February 25, 1970)

“The still life of Braque and the landscapes of Lurcat have no more relationship to the conventional still life and landscape than the double images of Picasso have to the traditional portrait. New Times! New Ideas! New Methods!” —Mark Rothko
Lanset, Andy. “Rothko and Gottlieb discuss, ‘The Portrait and the Modern Artist,’ on WNYC’s Art in New York.” WNYC, January 22, 2017, https://www.wnyc.org/story/rothko-and-gottlieb-discuss-portrait-and-modern-artist-wnycs-art-new-york/.

“Even before the days of the camera there was a definite distinction between portraits which served as historical or family memorials and portraits that were works of art. Rembrandt knew the difference; for, once he insisted upon painting works of art, he lost all his patrons.” —Mark Rothko
Lanset, Andy. “Rothko and Gottlieb discuss, ‘The Portrait and the Modern Artist,’ on WNYC’s Art in New York.” WNYC, January 22, 2017, https://www.wnyc.org/story/rothko-and-gottlieb-discuss-portrait-and-modern-artist-wnycs-art-new-york/.

“Today the artist is no longer constrained by the limitation that all of man’s experience is expressed by his outward appearance. Freed from the need of describing a particular person, the possibilities are endless. The whole of man’s experience becomes his model, and in that sense it can be said that all of art is a portrait of an idea.” —Mark Rothko
Lanset, Andy. “Rothko and Gottlieb discuss, ‘The Portrait and the Modern Artist,’ on WNYC’s Art in New York.” WNYC, January 22, 2017, https://www.wnyc.org/story/rothko-and-gottlieb-discuss-portrait-and-modern-artist-wnycs-art-new-york/.

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