Ariel Pink Quotes

I get to live down my reputation for being cantankerous if I slowly evolve towards being a really good live show.

That's really what keeps me playing live - appreciation. And I guess I've made a lot of wiggle room for myself to try different things and discover what I'm doing, and the audience accepts it.

My music already has this oldish kind of quality to it, like you don't necessarily know what era it was recorded in, so it all kind of felt surreal and weird. Night after night when I played live, I was really trying to figure it out in real time, and I still don't know what effect I'm going for or what effect I actually achieve. Looking back, I feel like it would be arrogant of me not to appreciate the fact that I've been able to do whatever I want and still have an audience come see me.

For me, self-gratification eventually took a backseat to trying to do something collaborative with other people, to trying to make something new.

I dont want any injustice brought against the bullies. Bullies just dont know any better. Anyone who is crying about police brutality or victimization as an adult needs to stop it and realize the privileges we have in this country.

I procrastinate, and I push writing to the last available moment, because I don't like to settle on anything. I guess you can call it indecision or you can call it holding out for inspiration.

I never see songs as permanent. I'm always in a state of revising everything.

I always wanted to get into rock music so I could cover up my real personality, change my voice, and create a false self to hide behind.

I hate not understanding the words, because it kind of squashes the song. It shrinks the visual landscape that you've made for the sounds. And, all of a sudden, the content eclipses things.

It's not illegal to be an asshole.

As for performing live, I just never imagined how it would work out; for good reason, because it doesn't just work out - not the way you think it will. It's a chance that you take.

I sang "Patience" by Guns N' Roses for my sixth grade talent show and I wanted to be an actor when I was younger. It was all very, very theatrical. It was only later that I separated the two and thought of myself as quite the opposite of an actor.

The universe is expanding, and every second that you're alive, the universe is bigger than it was a second before. There's nothing in front of us, exactly, other than the future, and there's no space for the size, the density of the universe to go. Because it's expanding at every point simultaneously.

I have a strong impulse to protect history and time and the lineage of events.

There's always room for improvement. I'm always focused on the results, and those are the precise things that I don't really experience as a part of the performance.

I had my gothy phase, but I was never a troublemaker or anything like that.

I've always wanted to do a movie, and I really feel the urge to do it.I'm in Hollywood - I have no business not being in the movie industry.

I look suspicious if I dress in sort of benign clothes, going to the airport.

Everything comes with hard work. You never get to stop working. I don't see myself ever getting comfortable enough to not have to worry about working.

I knew what I wanted to do, which was to become a recording artist, so I definitely felt like I had a calling. The performing part was the part that I wasn't sure about.

I'm always gonna be in opposition no matter what, but I can still cover my bases and do what I like.

My goal is to make something special and pure, and that keeps me going, keeps me busy on the path of sobriety.

I envisioned all these people who had been admired for having been freaks in their own time, and I saw myself in line with them.

I was been raised to believe I was an artist. I believed what my parents said and fulfilled it, like a prophecy.

During those formative times, I really didn't know what was going on, and I was sort of torn in a thousand different directions with how I felt about what I was doing.

Confidence was never in short supply in my case. If anything, I think I overshot the mark with confidence way too early in my career, and gradually, it's about just getting more humble and wanting to sit down more.

The ideal is to live forever, right? Or to live right now and just be grateful that I feel good. I'm definitely grateful for every second that I'm alive. At this point in my life, I definitely take time out throughout the day to just stop and be like, "Everything is cool." It's as good as it's gonna be, because it only gets worse.

I still have a very nonintellectual, nonjudgmental relationship with melody and the music as I hear it all in my head.

The world is full of bands and bullshit, and if I'm doing a stupid art project like rock 'n' roll then I want to spare my audience as much as possible.

When making a record, I could done a new face pretty easily and use all these different devices to hide who I am - or who I was - which really had very little to do with what I was trying to convey.

I love having the impulsivity to change course. I think it's key to keeping things fresh.

I remember being very psyched for our first tours, despite not knowing about the endless stream of situations and setbacks that we'd face.

I always want to do something that just sort of fits the mood. It's supposed to help the song, it's not supposed to take away from the song or re-contextualize it. I always feel like the less you make it a conceptual territorial debut, the better.

I do enjoy my solo time ... I want to stay home and do soundtracks and watch TV in my underwear with a keyboard on my lap and just be a couch potato.

I was definitely a thespian of sorts in elementary school. I went to a real small private school and every year I participated in the talent shows and the school plays, all of 'em.

I know when somebodys heard my music. I can hear it in their music.

You marry your friends when you stay with your friends. It's hard enough to find a good roommate, let alone a good person you can live with and fall in love with at the same time. You might as well just take your roommate, if you can find one, and marry them. I mean, if you can find somebody that doesn't drive you crazy, I would say marry that.

The first half of high school, I had a girlfriend, and then the second half I got to know these guys who would just get stoned and jam. I had struck the goth thing by then, but I still thought of myself as Ian Curtis or something.

Talk about a struggling artist having to work against enormous odds ... But I love movies so much, so I'm going to do it.

I love everybody. You have to embrace all facets of humanity; love and accept everyone as being part of yourself.

If somebody ever says something is a mature theme, it's bound to not be. I mean, you shouldn't fall for that. You can make it sound mature, but anything that's about being mature is pretty immature.

In the years between 2000 and 2004, I always got the feeling that people were just starting to hear about me and they were all late to the game. I'd be out playing shows for records that I recorded back in 1999 that were just coming out.

At 35, I'm thinking, Oh, I don't have any of that initial inspiration that I had before, all that angst. I always thought I would burn out very quickly.

The things that keep me awake at night are things like textures and instrumentation and plotting out what things are going to do and what the sounds are that I'm trying to capture.

I've kind of gotten more timid. I used to be fearless - at a certain point I didn't care about what anybody thought. I had all the answers and I could have been as bad as I wanted to be. But nowadays I just want to be good and make people happy.

You can pout about the way the world is as long as you want, but that's not going to change it. You've got to figure it out.

The music usually occurs to me as a complete sound, and then I have developed the skill of being able to translate that into a fully realized song.

I think about music in the way that I heard music as a kid - like, Oh my god, there's this weird rubbery ball of undulating things.