Quotes from Elliott Smith

Playing things too safe is the most popular way to fail. Dying is another way...

Everybody gets a tag. If you listen to a Velvet Underground record, you don't think, 'Godfathers of Punk.' You just think, 'This sounds great.' The tags are there in order to help try to sell something by giving it a name that's going to stick in somebody's memory. But it doesn't describe it. So 'depressing' isn't a word I would use to describe my music. But there is some sadness in it -- there has to be, so that the happiness in it will matter.

You can't get better at things you never play.

What I used to be will pass away and then you'll see That all I want now is happiness for you and me

Why would you want any other, when you're a world within a world?

Tired of dancing on a pot of gold flake paint

It's ok, it's alright, nothing's wrong tell Mr. man with impossible plans to just leave me alone in the place where I make no mistakes in the place where I have what it takes

I didn't have a hard time making it, I had a hard time letting it go.

They say that God makes problems Just to see what you can stand Before you do as the devil pleases Give up the thing you love

I actually don't think that I'm gonna sell a lot of records.

And I'm not trying to write heavy songs.

It was hard to sing like how I wanted to because playing live I had to just be at the top of my lungs all the time, and it made me sound like I had a really bad cold or something.

But I was also doing odd jobs around Portland, like spreading gravel and transplanting bamboo trees.

It was kind of ridiculous to carry it up to a certain point and then drop the ball or the bomb, like quitting the band right after we had signed to Virgin.

I don't think that Dreamworks would have signed me expecting to really mess around with whatever it is I do.

I don't really like New York better than Portland. It's just a different place.

Haven't laughed this hard in a long time. I better stop now before I start crying. Go off to sleep in the sunshine...I don't want to see the day when its dying.

I mean people just have a way of - y'know they'll review your record in two sentences and put you in this little stupid box that you don't want to be in

I didn't know how many people knew who Ferdinand was.

I don't think it's important who I am. I really like playing music, but I don't really want to be anything in particular.

Because God only knows why people like what they like and don't like something else.

Well, I try not to think about the general public since I have no idea what the general public is and I don't think anybody does.

I can't think of anything off the top of my head that seems more important than something designed to raise money to keep something going that keeps IV drug users from dying.

I didn't think I was gonna be playing on the Oscars or anything.