Julian Casablancas Quotes & Sayings

Make sure your heart is singing right until the day it stops. — Julian Casablancas

The best solutions are often simple, yet unexpected. — Julian Casablancas

Can our mind evolve to be something other than an extension of our animal needs? — Julian Casablancas

My parents separated when I was eight. I grew up with my mom alone. — Julian Casablancas

I always want to make Strokes records and play Strokes shows. — Julian Casablancas

Don't you dare get to the top and not know what to do. — Julian Casablancas

The way Lou Reed wrote and sang about drugs and sex, about the people around him - it was so matter-of-fact, — Julian Casablancas

I kinda like messing with perception a little bit. Kind of what drugs do sometimes, and drinking. I mean, you know, you mess with your mind a little bit to see life from different angles. Within reason, if you can handle it. — Julian Casablancas

L.A. is a vortex. The weather there tricks you into thinking you're on vacation, even when you're working fourteen hours a day. — Julian Casablancas

It find it funny how people from Boston and New York hate each other because of pro teams. — Julian Casablancas

It's like an inner struggle for me, between saying I don't give a **** and trying to make it work. You want to do the right thing, but I'm sick of people thinking I'm difficult. — Julian Casablancas

But it can be hard to experiment when you're in a band. — Julian Casablancas

I want to be one of those people, be they writers, poets, musicians, who leaves clues for the next generation. The really good people leave clues that help feed the human race. That's my aspiration. — Julian Casablancas

In most cultures, you can have a kid at 18 and it's not a big thing. It's not like, 'Oh, you've got to get a different haircut and move to the suburbs and act, like, 35.' — Julian Casablancas

I'm happy to feed the illusion that I'm a lazy recluse. — Julian Casablancas

Sometimes I've sat outside, not to tan, but as a result of that I ended up tanning slightly. — Julian Casablancas

The British press can be so annoying. They jerk you off with one hand and smack you with the other. — Julian Casablancas

Religion is never the problem; it's the people who use it to gain power. — Julian Casablancas

I am a fan of 'SNL' and a big Jimmy Fallon fan, too. — Julian Casablancas

L.A.'s kind of, like, seven really cool towns. It's so laid-back. If you go in the right spot, you can walk around, and you don't need a car. — Julian Casablancas

I have to say, I'm good with gifts. If I find something perfect for a certain person, I'll just get it and put it away in a kind of nook under my bed - a little gift hutch, if you prefer. — Julian Casablancas

I always reference 'Mad Max' when I think about what I want to wear. But it's a fine line between that and 'Edward Scissorhands'. — Julian Casablancas

I very often have night terrors. Just think of the worst possible situation, and it's a regular thing for me. I've died in my sleep twenty-three different ways. — Julian Casablancas

I'm really grateful. But I never had the rock star dream. I thought it would be cool to be a modern-day composer. — Julian Casablancas

Boarding school didn't feel like my world, I felt like an alien; people there had a lot of money. — Julian Casablancas

New York is in my soul. — Julian Casablancas

Just slow it down enough to enjoy the ride. — Julian Casablancas

I'd like to just get to a point where maybe we can say something that will be matterful. That's definitely not a word, by the way. — Julian Casablancas

It was 100,000 years before we figured out what to do with fire. Imagine cavemen, sitting in front of a fire, eating raw meat for 100 thousand years. — Julian Casablancas

Vanity can easily overtake wisdom. It usually overtakes common sense. — Julian Casablancas

I would prefer it if people thought that I didn't work hard, that I just played the guitar for three minutes a week and was like, 'Check out this song - what do you think?' That would be ideal. I would prefer telling people that I'm just truly talented. — Julian Casablancas

When I hear Sam Cooke's 'A Change Is Gonna Come', it frustrates me because no matter how hard I try, I can never be that good. — Julian Casablancas

Forgive them even if they are not sorry — Julian Casablancas

Desire is individual. Happiness is common. — Julian Casablancas

Who you are vs. who you wish you were: Who wins? — Julian Casablancas

Art is the image of life, it's purpose simply to enhance it. — Julian Casablancas

Kids are always honest, 'cause they don't think they're ever going to die. — Julian Casablancas

A tour is the most intense, stimulating way to hear music; it's the best form to receive it. There's genuine excitement from people. I feel like we've stepped up a level. — Julian Casablancas

Birth is a beautiful thing. — Julian Casablancas

I mean, I guess you could say I'm a bit of a perfectionist. — Julian Casablancas

If it doesn't start with you, it dies with you. — Julian Casablancas

A band is a good way to break up a friendship. — Julian Casablancas

Now, the good of business is put above anything else, as corporations have become the new ruling body. Most decisions seem to be made like ones of a medieval king: whatever makes profit while ignoring and repressing the truth about whatever suffering it may cause (like pop music, for that matter). — Julian Casablancas

With a hundred ways to do a dozen things, why not try it all? — Julian Casablancas

If you're in a bar and a certain song comes on and the vibe is just different, it evokes the kinds of things that you want to feel, and if music can do that it's a very special thing. — Julian Casablancas

A band is a great way to destroy a friendship, and a tour's a great way to destroy a band. — Julian Casablancas

I find it funny how people from Boston and New York hate each other because of pro teams. But, like, everyone on the Red Sox is a random millionaire athlete from somewhere else. — Julian Casablancas

People often put me in a V-neck tennis club sweater, driving a Bentley, but my life wasn't like that. — Julian Casablancas

If the choice is between doing something supercool and having no one hear it and doing something equally cool and tricking people into putting it on the radio, I don't think the second option is some big sellout. — Julian Casablancas

There are so many little places I want to play, sometimes weird places I think would be fun to play ... a bar that's half full. — Julian Casablancas

The best artists are the ones that work the hardest, and if you work hard enough, you'll eventually experience the happy accidents that are art. — Julian Casablancas

We're so quick to point out our own flaws in others. — Julian Casablancas

The artistic element of Manhattan has kind of moved to Brooklyn. Has it changed it? Yeah. Has it ruined it? I would say no. It is what it is. I say better that than an urban war zone. — Julian Casablancas

I think a lot of people study the rules too much and then don't know how to be creative. — Julian Casablancas

Greed is the inventor of injustice as well as the current enforcer. — Julian Casablancas

I don't shake at the site of alcohol anymore. I don't feel the need for it. If anything I'll get stoned. I always told myself if it got to the point that it was affecting my songwriting and music that I'd stop. And it did get to the point. — Julian Casablancas

Working on music is the funnest thing for me, and I love it, and I could do it all day, all night. — Julian Casablancas

Doing heroin is like walking around with a terrorist as your friend. It's like taking a terrorist around to parties You never know when it's going to blow up on you. — Julian Casablancas

People are always arguing: New York or L.A.? They're both great places, you know. — Julian Casablancas

When you first start writing a song, it's fun, then when you start recording it, it's fun, but by the time you've finished recording it, you're sick of it. — Julian Casablancas

I'm always writing something. I've got so much stuff, I don't know what to do with it. Some of it will be Strokes, some of it will be I don't know what - stuff for pop singers. TV themes. I've got a jar stuffed with songs, all these ideas that are just me humming into a recording device. — Julian Casablancas

Compared to people in Africa, I think we've all had privileged upbringings. — Julian Casablancas

I don't really care about clothes, but it's about wearing something that gives you social confidence. — Julian Casablancas

When the Strokes first started playing gigs, instead of getting into a costume for the shows, we talked about how we should dress every day, in real life, like we're playing onstage. I don't really care about clothes, but it's about wearing something that gives you social confidence. Or maybe helps you pick up chicks. — Julian Casablancas

The thing for me is I never had this burning desire to do a solo record my whole life. — Julian Casablancas

Whenever I go to shows, I end up looking at what shoes the guy onstage is wearing and the jacket he's got on. And when you know everything's gonna be under scrutiny, it makes you feel more comfortable if you have cool stuff. — Julian Casablancas

One of the big songwriting things for me has always been: always think what you do sucks. Because the second you stop believing that, you suck. And that's a fact. — Julian Casablancas

I see myself out of my own eyes, which means I have no idea what's going on the other way around. I just think I try to be a good person - and I fail. — Julian Casablancas

I feel slightly confused about certain things. Practical and tactical things. When you try to make everyone happy ... in the end you've got to make yourself happy. — Julian Casablancas

For a long time I didn't want to do a solo thing, but there comes a point where everyone else is going outside of The Strokes and The Strokes filtering process. — Julian Casablancas

I feel like I've given up a lot of my fantasies. I just want to do things differently, and to a lot of people that's annoying. I like weird stuff. I always hoped if we had a big success it would be on our own terms ... — Julian Casablancas

I think I used to do everything and then people had a problem with that within the band, so we're doing more of a communal thing. — Julian Casablancas

That it's a lot harder to make a keyboard sound not-cheesy than a guitar. — Julian Casablancas

Making an album can be like being pregnant: you want to pop that thing out and show everybody! — Julian Casablancas

The Strokes can play anything. They could play 'Thriller,' and it would just sound like 'Thriller' as played by the Strokes. — Julian Casablancas

I'm not a pop song lyric writer. I can't just focus on one simple meaning or even a double entendre. — Julian Casablancas

You know some of the people in The Strokes, yeah, their parents had success - but we didn't live like yuppies. — Julian Casablancas

I think all of Manhattan has pretty much become a bar-slash-nightclub-slash-restaurant. There were always pockets of that. But now every corner of Manhattan is that. — Julian Casablancas

No one leaves an old friend unless they are ashamed. — Julian Casablancas

No matter who I'm talking to, I always talk like I'm doing an interview. — Julian Casablancas

I'm just going to try and be a good dad and not spoil the kid: give him love and encouragement but also discipline. Me and my woman, we don't want him to feel too entitled. — Julian Casablancas

I guess the best thing about marriage is the fact you've got the coolest partner you can imagine by your side for all the things you're going to face in your life. So far, Juliet's been there for me. She's been good for my voice, good for my everything. — Julian Casablancas

Songwriting is hard - it's so easy to fall into the same traps. It's not like I wake up and songs flow out of me. — Julian Casablancas

It's that feeling when you hear your favourite song. That feeling, whether you're in a car, at a party or alone at home or in bed and you hear this song and it just hits you so strong - that's what we aim for. — Julian Casablancas

The problem with touring isn't the traveling and the shows, it's the vegetal state you get into. — Julian Casablancas