Quotes from Ben Folds

Rock and roll is - and should be - a kid's place.

In many ways, I've chosen to be plain, almost too plain, too self-effacing. Like, if I record a vocal and I don't like the way it sounds, I would have them turn it up and take the reverb off it to make it as plain as possible.

The clock never stops, never stops, never waits. We're growing old. It's getting late.

It's a tough thing to know that when you're making your album, you're going to end up collaborating with, say, Wal-Mart, on your artwork. That just sucks. And the pressure behind getting the numbers real fast is, to me, dizzying.

Billy Joel and Joe Jackson were both great, and they both play piano.

I'm older than I was, and I'm still washed-up, and I haven't changed my music one iota. It's just much easier to do this when people are being nice to you.

Notes don't make music until you learn to insert silence between them.

My job is to be some sort of music/lyric psychic, to figure out that that's the right song to not fight the lyric.

I do have that mindset - that most good art comes from some turmoil, from someone trying to come to some equilibrium, or come up and get a breath.

I think a lot of good directors listen to music while they're working. The songs just don't become a part of the film. They're replaced.

Even though I live in America more, I feel like when I go to Adelaide, that's when I get to go home.

Maybe this is wrong, but I feel like I craft my songs carefully enough that I still find that fifteen years after having written one, it still works for me - I'm not cringing.

Next door, there's an old man who lived to his nineties and one day passed away in his sleep. And his wife, she stayed for a couple of days and passed away. I'm sorry, I know that's a strange way to tell you that I know we belong.

Everyone, when you're a teenager and you're growing up, you do feel like your life is dramatic enough to be on a TV screen, but we know that it's not.

Now that I have found someone, I'm feeling more alone... than I ever have before.

I used to do this big rant at the end of some gigs with Ben Folds Five. The band broke into this big heavy metal thing and I started as a joke to scream in a heavy metal falsetto. I found myself saying things like: Feel my pain, I am white, feel my pain.

Why would I want to sound like Joni Mitchell? I've got Joni Mitchell records, and they're great, and I couldn't possibly be that good.

Now that I have found someone, I'm feeling more alone... than I ever have before.

You have made me smile again; in fact I may be sore from it- it's been awhile.

My my, the cruelest lies are often told without a word My my, the kindest truths are often spoken, never heard

And I twisted it wrong just to make it right Had to leave myself behind

If you're afraid they might discover your redneck past, there are a hundred ways to cover your redneck past.

They're into something that is too big to be expressed through their clothes.

I accept that one day, my music will be gone forever. So will the Sistine Chapel, Bruce Lee movies, and all the silly arts and crafts my aunt ever bought. Gone with the wind. Making songs is something I do here and now. Because light captured is just a moment, a flicker.