Quotes from John Grant

Most of the bad things that have happened to me happened in Denver.

I realized that a lot of the things I had been telling myself about not being good enough just weren't true, and 'Queen of Denmark' gave me the chance to prove to myself that I could do something real.

When I was young, people were so disgusted by me. Before I even knew that I was gay... everybody else had it figured out and, you know, they were letting you know.

I'm quite gregarious. But when it comes to relationships, I mean, I'm no good at it. I suck at it. And people say I'm way too hard on myself, but I always feel like somebody else is going to say it if I don't. Why not just beat them to the punch so it doesn't hurt so much?

I think The Czars had an identity crisis, as we were five guys pulling in different musical directions.

If I had a good scream, like Frank Black, I'd be doing punk music, 'cos I love that.

I'm a seriously flawed individual, but I guess everybody is.

I feel like, in the Czars, for example, I was afraid. I couldn't express myself. I didn't have a connection to myself. That's one of the huge reasons why it was such a difficult existence. I put a lot of that on myself. I couldn't access myself. I couldn't look at myself, because I was too ashamed.

If I'm honest, I suppose there's something I don't want people to see in my eyes. They really are the window to the soul.

It really was an amazing thing when Midlake brought me down to Texas and created an atmosphere in which I felt really safe and was able to do whatever I wanted artistically.

I can't create music if I'm wearing a mask and not being myself, and that was the problem with The Czars.

If 'Queen Of Denmark' was about my childhood, then 'Pale Green Ghosts' is definitely about my adolescence, and that period was completely dominated by electronic music.

There's a lot of anger in 'Queen of Denmark,' and that's me getting political.

Sometimes I wish I was one of those artists like David Bowie. They're not putting their private lives out there; it's about show and entertainment. But an alter ego is very dangerous for me. Because I am the guy who will become lost in that.

I've kept going to therapy to find out why my perspective is so skewered and why I'm filled with rage. It's so I can live in this world alongside these other people who seem to be what is desired and what the world wants.

We were born to be friends. We both knew it. The Australian Aborigines have the traditional belief that a complete human being comprises two parts that are split before birth, that we spend our lives seeking the other part to make ourselves whole again, and that only the lucky succeed in doing so.

This pain It is a glacier moving through you And carving out deep valleys And creating spectacular landscapes

High-Performance Habits" by Brendon Burchard.

When I reached my senior year in high school, I fell into a hole that took a couple of decades to get out of.

'Ernest Borgnine' is sort of my version of Woody Allen's 'Purple Rose Of Cairo' in that it's about the occasional difficulty of coming to terms with the cold hard facts and the temptation to escape into another world - like movies, for example. I'm a pro at escaping.

The only difficult thing is learning to recognise the interesting bits from those millions of moments life provides you with every day and writing down those snippets.

I do feel I have a hard time dealing with things being OK.

I think the humor, when applied in the right amount, only serves to intensify the other emotions in a given song; it highlights them, makes them stand out.

I don't feel like I'm writing music for gay people. I'm a gay man who is writing music about one tiny little experience of what it's like to be a human on this planet.