Quotes from Kim Gordon

In rock music, people have certain assumptions that it makes people more enlightened, and it really doesn't.

I don't even know if I always entirely get what I'm trying to say right away with lyrics. I like a lot of things that are more subtext. I grew up mishearing lyrics my whole life, but somehow there's so much more, too, that's implied in vocal delivery and the music itself and the gestural quality of it.

I try not to think too much about what the audience is thinking and what they think I should do. I'd be self-conscious if I did. Anyone becomes mannered if you think too much about what other people think.

It's really hard for me to sing and play bass.

I have a really hard time writing my own lyrics for this record, because one, I had to write so many and also I was kind of perplexed by the idea of how I was going to sing and play... because at that time, we hadn't really thought about asking someone else.

I really want to start playing basketball. I actually bought a new basketball.

Well, it was kind of accidental that Jim started playing with us, although it wasn't sudden... we hadn't really looked around to think who could be a fifth member.

Everyone's so interior now, they're not really looking around them. They're on their phones.

I picked up the bass kind of postpunk-style. There's a real art to not learning how to play an instrument and being able to still play it.

I think of myself as unconventional, I guess. I maybe always had a problem with authority, like a stubbornness about what's expected - despite wanting to get some recognition through performing - but also not always wanting to do the expected thing.

You know, we have our own audience, and it's not like - they just know we're not going to do certain things.

When Punk Rock happened, it created an opening in the culture... it made it ok to think you could play music, even though you had no musical training.

There's the added element of adrenaline if you're performing. You're aware of spatial relationships and the music.

There is something wonderful about singing and writing music, I think there is something special about creativity and the ability humans have in that area.

I like that show 'Ray Donovan' - I'm obsessed with that. He's in Hollywood, he's some kind of a fixer, but he's also kind of a thug. And 'Scandal,' the D.C. one with Kerry Washington.

Part of my desire to play music was because I wanted to escape the art world and the politics of it; the petty gossip-y art world. But you know, I feel like they're both equal forms of expression.

I still don't really feel like a bass player.

You're always going to feel like you're catching up, and part of that is just balancing work and motherhood and the whole feeling of needing to please, which I do think girls and women feel more than men.

I've done art on my own, and I've also collaborated with other people to make art. And collaborating with other people is always interesting because you end up doing things you probably wouldn't do otherwise.

I just happened to start playing music for the conceptual ideas.

No one talks about woman power. The Spice Girls - they're masquerading as little girls. It's repulsive.

Sometimes I think fashion is more of a conversation between men than it is for women.

I'm a slow learner. When people are so talented or facile at picking up an instrument and playing covers, like Yo La Tengo, I admire that. But I could never do that.

A friend of mine introduced me to Thurston Moore because she thought I would like him. He was playing with the tallest band in the world, the Coachmen. They were sort of like Talking Heads, jangly guitar, Feelies guitar. Anyway, it was love at first sight. His band broke up that night. And we started playing.