Elliott Smith Music Quotes & Sayings

We're the victims of a disease called social prejudice, my child. These dear ladies of the law and order league are scouring out the dregs of the town. C'mon be a glorified wreck like me. — Dudley Nichols

No one is immune from the larger events of his or her time - the Depression, World War II, civil rights, Vietnam, the spring of 1989 in China. These events intrude upon our lives and radically affect our directions. — Paul Tsongas

For there was once a time when we expected the worst. But then the worst happened, did it not? And so we will never be surprised ever again. — Douglas Coupland

Cancer, perhaps, is an ultimate perversion of genetics - a genome that becomes pathologically obsessed with replicating itself. The — Siddhartha Mukherjee

I've been doing four-track songs by myself since I was like a teenager, where I'd sing in a way that I ... I just didn't think other people would like it, so I didn't play it for them but eventually I got over that, which I'm happy that I did, because it's kind of a drag to be playing a kind of music that you don't really like as much as another kind. — Elliott Smith

I got tired of doing battle with people thinking I was a little weird because I wasn't in a band making happy, stilted music. The only people who really seem weird to me are people who think they're normal. People who think it's possible to be normal just by doing the same things that most people do. Is there a most people? I don't know. Television makes it seem like there is, but I think that might just be television, — Elliott Smith

I think the music business will eventually crush me, but I [smiles] ... I'm ready. — Elliott Smith

Everybody gets a tag. If you listen to a Velvet Underground record, you don't think, 'Godfathers of Punk.' You just think, 'This sounds great.' The tags are there in order to help try to sell something by giving it a name that's going to stick in somebody's memory. But it doesn't describe it. So 'depressing' isn't a word I would use to describe my music. But there is some sadness in it
there has to be, so that the happiness in it will matter. — Elliott Smith

Feng Shui is all about the subconscious interaction between planetary and mental energies. — Stefan Emunds

My father was a man who didn't consider himself learned. He was a man who liked to be a farmer. He enjoyed his dairy farm and felt the calling. So there was a dedication. I was dedicated as a child to the service of God, and so there was this continual centering of a greater purpose than your own. — Phil Jackson

I don't think it's important who I am. I really like playing music, but I don't really want to be anything in particular. — Elliott Smith

Fifteen- to 30-year-olds are interested in all kinds of intelligent movies - it doesn't have to be a broad comedy or an action adventure for them to go see it. — Patrick Whitesell

Music is worth doing just because. It doesn't have to be justified by some political point of view, and it's kind of insulting to the music to make it a tool for something else. — Elliott Smith

The contented person finds rest in death, and for the greedy person, death puts an end to his long list of desires. — Liezi

We paid off our debts, we learned some, made friends and returned in 1950 with a larger view of life. I had, however, no home, no income of any kind and no prospects whatsoever. — James W. Black

You look at, like, a 'People' magazine, which used to be a really good, you know, nice magazine you could go to for real stories. It wasn't like a 'Star' or an 'US Weekly' and they have somebody with plastic surgery on the cover, Heidi Montag. And it's obviously what consumers want, because why else would they be doing it? — Chelsea Handler

My main influences are pop and folk music - Bob Lind, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, the Motown collection, The Zombies, Elliott Smith, and a ton of 70's AM radio hits. I love powerpop too. — Greta Salpeter

I think of death these days as a companion I long to meet. — Jennifer Lynch