Quotes from Carrie Brownstein

I've mostly been focusing on writing, and I've really enjoyed not playing music. It will always be part of my life, but I don't feel the immediate need to be playing for people.

I always felt that the most common thread in my life from when I was young until now has been a highly observant, very analytical mind.

I think when you're writing from your own life, it's hard because you realize that people have their own assessment of how they look, and they don't know how you will describe them.

I went to a liberal arts college wherein grading was qualitative and we had to write our own evaluations.

I grew up outside of Seattle and have lived here my whole life, and I think that there is a culture of questioning and guilt. Almost an 'anti-ambition.'

I feel like I live a pretty quiet life. I like to focus on work and friends, and I love being in nature.

I actually think that Republican administrations are better for music. The Reagan era was such a great era for punk and indie rock.

Grief is sort of the allowance of feeling.

'Wii Music' elevates the scope of music video games by moving beyond commentary on what music is - as 'Rock Band' and 'Guitar Hero' do - to suggesting what it could be. Yet I'm still left wondering: Couldn't it be more?

One summer, when I was elementary-school age, my neighbors and I built guitars and keyboards out of scrap wood, painted them in bright colors, and formed the cover band Lil' 'D' Duran Duran. We didn't make our own noise or even pretend to play our fake instruments.

In the high-stakes and elitist world of music collecting and fandom, we operate from an ab ovo perspective. The seed, the first incarnation - that is the most pure, the most lauded. Minutemen trumps Firehose, Throwing Muses beats Belly, Joy Division over New Order, Operation Ivy ruled Rancid, Undertones instead of That Petrol Emotion.

My father was a corporate lawyer. He went to work in a suit and tie. He had a secretary. He left the house before seven A.M. His professional life felt generic, like a backdrop, a signifier more than a life: office job.

I wrote so much about fandom and participation for NPR that I eventually realized my most fertile way of participating in music is to actually play it, at least in a way that made the most sense to me.

I've been trying to immerse myself in the narratives of other people. I try to not isolate myself as much. It is really hard. People that are sensitive, you just feel too porous sometimes. There's this inertia that sets in, and it's hard to get out of bed. I think knowing that other people go through it is really reassuring.

At its core, kitsch feels like something less than art; it panders to the middle and is flagrantly anti-art, though it often apes or references art. This referential, ersatz quality is why it's so fun to collect.

There's something that feels very timeless about fandom.

Much of the music I remember from camp was unofficial: the songs a counselor would play for us on acoustic guitar or that an older camper would sing after telling us a tale of his hard-knock life. We couldn't get enough of 'One Tin Soldier' or 'Cat's in the Cradle.'

I've always loved writing. Doing that at the same time as playing music can be tiring.

I love coffee. I love a midday espresso on set, just for the energy.

There is a certain comfort that comes from feeling intellectually apart from phenomena. That you have the luxury of time to reflect or apply scholarly thinking to art and culture.

That's so rare in the world of TV or film to have a genuine friendship turn into something that people watch, that people relate to. That's so unique.

I'm pretty horrible at relationships and haven't been in many long-term ones. Leaving and moving on - returning to a familiar sense of self-reliance and autonomy - is what I know; that feeling is as comfortable and comforting as it might be for a different kind of person to stay.

There's some horrible connotations in the word 'reunion.'

In the early and mid 1990s, every musician I knew was obsessed with Helium. The 'Pirate Prude' EP and 'Pat's Trick' played on repeat at nearly every gathering I attended. And we didn't just listen to these records - we discussed them, the worlds they opened, novelistic and strange.