Quote collection
66 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"If there's any kind of morality, for me, it's about reality; what is reality? I have a hard time distinguishing what is valuable when it comes to the real world and the fantasy world. Like, should I invest my time in the ordinary world or the imaginary world?"
"The Internet is just one big gossip chamber - that's why it's so fascinating and entertaining. It's a fabulous platform for superficial communication."
"We live in a world that is cruel to the earth itself. Man is a biological terrorist."
"I think musicians should stay off television generally. I get asked all the time. Those shows are just promoting insipid comedies. Who watches those shows? And whoever does I don't think my music would speak to those people. I don't even want those people to hear what I'm doing."
"We stayed a long, long time, to see you, to meet you, to see you at last."
"My only concern about art collaborations is that I never thought of myself as an Artist. My tax forms say Musician/Songwriter."
"I was feeling privileged and self-conscious about my life as a musician, which feels self-absorbed. I can't help it, I am a musician. This is what I do."
"I've always been obsessed with electronics and using computers and software. It's always been part of my vernacular."
"The Internet is manic. It's very strange. I don't think it's healthy. They should outlaw posting comments! It's a bummer to go somewhere to get information or buy tickets and you encounter profanity everywhere you go."
"I'm from the generation that's always been recording, from the very beginning. I learned to play the guitar on the four-track. I started listening to music at a time when people were doing recording at home, when the discussion about songwriting correlated to the discussion about producing and engineering. I think that's a description of my generation."
"My siblings and I were raised like tenants, to be honest. There was a total absence of intimacy in my family, though there was still a great deal of camaraderie among the kids. Things were set up almost like a business, and it had to be managed that way because we were really poor, and there were a lot of mouths to feed."
"Fiction has always been a thorn in my side, because I've always wanted to be a writer but I can't seem to really do it."
"It's a mystical quality of music, that music isn't really concrete, and it's communicating abstractions about imaginary worlds. At least, my music's like that. It's not real. It's unreal, it's all fabrication. To write a song about Obama would suddenly break the spell."
"My Dad used to say that the balance of the world relied on all of the monks who were living outside of society in creative isolation. I don't quite understand the ascetic life or the private life or the monastic private life. But I definitely understand privacy's value."
"I'm always hearing music in terms of what I can take out of it, and I think I've always listened like that. I have a hard time just listening for pleasure. I'm much less about instinct, and more of a utilitarian listener."
"My music is just about story telling. I don't have much to say, and I'm not trying to change anyone's mind. I'm just singing through conviction about what I love and what I care about, starting with the very small."
"That's really where my heart is, unfortunately - I'm less interested in songwriting and more into just making noise."
"I felt that there's an obligation when writing a piece about an urban expressway made in the 50s to acknowledge the context, and Robert Moses is sort of an iconic figure in New York, and he influenced the shape of the city more than anyone else before or after him. He was one of the most powerful and influential civic architects in the world, because of how much he transformed the city. He built multiple bridges and highways and parks and recreational spaces, beaches - in the course of a few decades, he completely changed the city"
"An imaginary baby is so much easier than a real baby. No diapers to change."
"There's nothing cutting edge about what I'm trying to do. I'm not creating a new sound. I'm not like Bjork, who's an alien from another world. I'm of the earth. You could extract any measure of music out of anything I've ever done and you could find its affiliations in music history."