Quotes from Brian Eno

The basis of computer work is predicated on the idea that only the brain makes decisions and only the index finger does the work.

Avant-garde music is sort of research music. You're glad someone's done it but you don't necessarily want to listen to it.

I hate talking about music, to tell you the truth.

When you sing with a group of people, you learn how to subsume yourself into a group consciousness because a capella singing is all about the immersion of the self into the community. That's one of the great feelings - to stop being me for a little while and to become us. That way lies empathy, the great social virtue.

If you are part of a religion that very strongly insists that you believe then to decide not to do that is quite a big hurdle to jump over. You never forget the thought process you went through. It becomes part of your whole intellectual picture.

Agressive music can only shock you once. Afterwards its impact declines. It's inevitable.

I wanted to get rid of the element that had been considered essential in pop music: the voice.

I've had quite a lot of luck with dreams. I've often awoken in the night with a phrase or even a whole song in my head.

One often makes music to supplement one's world.

It's not the destination that matters. It's the change of scene.

If you grow up in a very strong religion like Catholicism you certainly cultivate in yourself a certain taste for the intensity of ideas.

I'm struck by the insidious, computer-driven tendency to take things out of the domain of muscular activity and put them into the domain of mental activity. The transfer is not paying off. Sure, muscles are unreliable, but they represent several million years of accumulated finesse.

I don't live in the past at all I'm always wanting to do something new. I make a point of constantly trying to forget and get things out of my mind.

I had wanted a tape recorder since I was tiny. I thought it was a magic thing. I never got one until just before I went to art school.

It's nice, I think, when people use your music for things you didn't think of.

I felt extremely uncomfortable as the focal point, in the spotlight. I really like the behind the scenes role, because all my freedom is there.

Musicians are there in front of you, and the spectators sense their tension, which is not the case when you're listening to a record. Your attention is more relaxed. The emotional aspect is more important in live music.

Editing is now the easiest thing on earth to do, and all the things that evolved out of word processing - 'Oh, let's put that sentence there, let's get rid of this' - have become commonplace in films and music too.

Perhaps when music has been shouting for so long, a quieter voice seems attractive.

Sometimes you recognize that there is a category of human experience that has not been identified but everyone knows about it. That is when I find a term to describe it.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the ambition of the great painters was to make paintings that were like music, which was then considered as the noblest art.

The smart thing in the art world is to have one good idea and never have another.

People do dismiss ambient music, don't they? They call it 'easy listening ' as if to suggest that it should be hard to listen to.

Something I've realized lately, to my shock, is that I am an optimist, in that I think humans are almost infinitely capable of self-change and self-modification, and that we really can build the future that we want if we're smart about it.