Quotes About Artistry

I don't want to think that anything is off limits for me to write about, but I also don't want to intrude on anybody's life, which is why there's very little specificity or names in the songs I write.

I'm not a big metal fan. I love and respect the musicianship, which is spectacular.

One thing that is constantly on my iPod is India Arie - I like her a lot; I listen to her a lot. I think she is just a spectacular artist.

I try to put on a show while being effective because the spectators come to be entertained by beautiful play.

Musically, I try not to box things in. I try to just play around this spectrum of influences: soul, jazz, and hip-hop.

It's my privilege to be able to play somebody not myself. I'm an actor who creates characters based in voice, movement, emotional quality, speech.

I want to be known to fans and appreciated as a 'boxer-painter' in regards to speed, footwork, punching power - an art form inside the ring.

I have been writing since I was old enough to spell. I have never considered not writing.

I've always kept writing. There's never been a moment where I went through a spell where I just don't write.

I play a Monk song, it's like you get possessed. And then you have to break that spell. You have to remind yourself that you are an individual, or that you aren't Thelonious Monk.

I spend my money on my props and my creations. I'm an inventor.

I want to spend my time between the creation of ideas and the creation of things.

Imagine spending seven years at MIT and research laboratories, only to find out that you're a performance artist.

I really enjoy DJing but I couldn't DJ exclusively. I couldn't produce exclusively either, that would involve spending a lot of time in isolation. But l do enjoy performing the music l create to people. It's a release for me.

Even when you write it, someone's got to play it. So if you can play it and bypass all the rest of the things, you're still doing as great as someone that has spent forty years trying to find out how to do that. I'm really pro-human beings, pro-expression of everything.

I've spent a lot of time playing Bach partitas. One of my first jobs was to play for ballet and modern classes, so the music in 'Partita' is kind of like choreography for me.

I don't know what the sound is or the song is until I've spent a lot of time on it. I'm always chipping away at it, rethinking it.

I didn't want to release a song like 'Spice Girl' right after 'Caroline' because I didn't want another 'hit' kind of song.

I feel like a hit will come whenever it does, but I don't want to sit in a studio trying to figure out the magic formula and mixing spices and trying to come up with the perfect song.

There was never an 'a-ha' moment when a spider bit me and I knew I could write songs. For that reason, I don't know if I'm always going to be able to. I want to write songs forever, but it's an elusive thing.

There is a solo on 'Spiders,' albeit a kind of a non-traditional solo, but that's what I love.

Spielberg shoots with one camera. The Coens, and I think this is right, maybe discarded one shot on 'No Country for Old Men.' That's something you want to aspire to, because nothing's out of place. Everything's necessary.

I would love to meet or work with Sofia Coppola. Or Wes Anderson or Spike Jonze. I'd love to meet them. The way they film, it's all so geometric.

I love so many directors. I love David O. Russell. I love David Fincher, I love Alexander Payne and Jane Campion and my aunt. Spike Jonze. There are just so many amazing directors.