Quotes from Chris Thile

Really the greatest music I've ever heard I've hated the first time I heard it. It's been abrasive at first; it's been something that challenged me in a way that I wasn't fully comfortable with.

The greatest creators are as hungry to consume as they are to create.

I'm a massive tennis fan! I love it to bits. I wish I could play, but I am worried that the muscles required for tennis are sort of in direct opposition to those required for mandolin playing.

I certainly love the bluegrass ensemble, I think it's a powerful tool, but I don't think it's more than a tool.

Calvin is a constant reminder that I'm not always as present as I want to be. His go-to state of being is present. So I'm really grateful of that part of being his parent.

I love music with everything I have, and when I am in a front of a classroom talking about music sometimes someone will ask me a question and it reminds me to really think about something, to really feel something.

I'll often order a cortado and stand there quizzing the poor barista about the extraction time, how much pressure they are applying and how many grams are in it. I am that guy. It's reprehensible to the max, but it's how I go through my life.

There is a certain immortality in the change that another person effects on another person.

I am an incorrigible coffee geek. I make espresso.

It's very hard to make grand, romantic gestures on a mandolin, and there are times, particularly when playing Bach, that you long for just a little more sustain. But for better or worse it's my voice, and the trade-off comes with increased intimacy. It's like you're beckoning the audience closer: 'C'mere, I've got something to tell ya.'

For years, my actual listening activity has been governed by what I perceived to be good for me as a musician, almost like the way an athlete trains for a given sporting task. I'd listen to something if I felt it would improve my sense of harmony or counterpoint, or whatever I was working on.

I just want the opportunity to transcend my personal boundaries and the only way you can do that is by latching on to other people's coat-tails.

For me, music always leads. Lyrics are only about how they sing. It is wonderful if they read well, too. In the very best scenario, sometimes a lyric will pop out with a melody, simultaneously. That's a lovely thing, but you can't rely on that.

I play the mandolin, which people don't often expect great things from. But it has it's charms, and it's my voice. I feel like I had as little choice in the matter as I do my speaking and singing voice.

Everything in our lives is encouraging us to turn inward with all the technology that we have available to us.

Hats off to musicians who just want a pure escape. I have a lot of fondness for pure escapism. I don't feel like it's irresponsible, I think sometimes you really need to take a breather.

I went through a political shift when I was nineteen or twenty. I felt a certain way, and after the shift, I felt the opposite way. And never once did someone yelling at me or making me feel stupid do anything other than reinforce the convictions I had. What did get to me was people listening to me.

I can't listen to music while I'm doing something else. Well, unless I'm working out. But I, like, fall off the treadmill all the time if I'm listening to something that I like too much.

There's a lot of steps between there not being music and there being music. Composition is one part of that, but if no one performs it... It's like if a tree falls in the forest and no one's there to hear it, does it make a sound?

Bill Monroe is not singing about life in America. He's singing about life in Kentucky and Tennessee. And yet it's had this tremendous impact, not just in America but in the world. Why is Bill Monroe's hyper-regional music so universal? We can be so different and yet still share a tremendous amount.

I'm really not handy. I'm not good at things like changing a light bulb. If something is broken, the chances of me being able to fix it are slim to none.

I'm slow by nature; even if I write something fast, I'll let it sit for a month and hem and haw over it.

I'm always excited about music, but having spent so much time in its pursuit - well, my musical life is complicated.

I really love how the andante from the "A minor Sonata" sounds on the mandolin.