Quotes from Perfume Genius

My mom is always asking why can't I make something nice? Because I'll make paintings, say, and they're just really bloody and angsty. So I wrote 'Dark Parts' because I wanted to write something nice for her.

I'm just very self-conscious about the way I look. I really am embarrassed of it, because I wish I wasn't like that.

I was watching a movie called 'Perfume.' The book is really good, but the movie is really bad. My friend was making fun of it. He kept calling this obese guy a perfume genius. When I started putting my songs up on MySpace, I didn't know what was going to happen. I actually didn't put much thought into a name and just quickly used Perfume Genius.

I have ended up on so many weird Men's Rights Twitter accounts filled with weird anime. I don't know. It's so bizarre to me that people can think that way, and so I feel like I can decode them or figure it out. But you can end up so grossed out.

I saw this Facebook video of a boy, probably around seven, wearing a dress he had fashioned from a blanket, sashaying through his house while his mother applauded and cheered him on. He was so proud. It was such a beautiful thing but bittersweet because I knew his spirit would change soon: that he'd become self-aware and ashamed at some level.

Hymns have always sounded like sung spells to me. I never felt included in the magic of the God songs I heard growing up - I knew I was going to hell before anyone ever told me that I was. People found comfort in this all-knowing source, but I felt frightened and found out. I developed some weird and very dramatic complexes.

I wanna be bad sometimes - I wanna rip everything apart, -but it comes on less and less. Doing all this music stuff is very good for it.

I think it's fun to be superstitious. There's a drama in being superstitious. I'm like that in general. I have friends who don't believe in love or just think it's a chemical thing, and they don't believe in magic. I enjoy believing in all that stuff. It makes things seem more important than they are, like there's more to it.

Our house was cluttered with little charms, thoughtfully placed. There were all kinds of little things going on. Like, my mom made a lampshade out of a picture of our family, but if you look closely, there's a baby Jesus that she cut up and put just above all of us.

I started writing songs later in life because I just couldn't commit to it before.

Music helped me, growing up: it very much felt like a companion and made me less lonely.

When I started to allow myself to not be locked into wearing men's clothes, things kind of opened up. It feels very kind to drape yourself in something that feels special.

I don't know if I could write a pop song without at least a little touch of bite in it, and it's usually not a bite that most people would want to sing.

I was really scared of the devil growing up: I was convinced I was going to be possessed.

It used to be enough for me to get on stage and sing. I kind of crave the performance part now. I write knowing it's going to happen, which I didn't do before.

When I watch alien movies, I want to be the alien. I don't want to be the people that make first contact or anything; I just want to be that creature.

He was my biggest crush when I was 12, and it's never really stopped. I was on BenAffleck.com a lot growing up. I don't know why.

There's a book called 'You're Not a Stranger Here' by Adam Haslett - short stories, a lot of them are about mental illness and gay people - that classic combination. But they're really well-written, really powerful. It's pretty good.

I saw 'Predators.' That was pretty good, actually.

My favorite movie is 'Dogfight' with River Phoenix and Lili Taylor. The ending is kind of bittersweet but so real and moving and complicated.

I'm fairly dramatic.

I have this idea of myself that I decided when I was 12 about who I am and how I come across and what the world is like. And if I have changed or the world has changed, I don't even notice sometimes because I'm holding on to these old ideas. I am more confident - the music is proof. But I can see the change there much easier than I do as a human.

Honestly, I just wear what makes me feel good. It becomes political when you leave the house without changing.

I am fierce, yes, but I'm serious about music.