Sufjan Stevens Song Quotes & Sayings

If looks were to be believed, he still was just a boy. Something of my age, though from his solemn quietude, I knew he was old in the soul. A boy whose black crayon would be the shortest in his box. — Tiffany McDaniel

Do unto others, before they do unto you. — Van Helsing

The life of people who do not know their destiny becomes an infinite chain of activities that in fact do not actually mean anything for their success — Sunday Adelaja

Flattery is from the teeth out. Sincere appreciation is from the heart out. — Dale Carnegie

The moment you surrender to love and allow it to lead you to exactly where your soul wants to go, you will have no difficulty. — Neale Donald Walsch

I'm no longer beholden to the sacredness of the recorded song as some kind of ultimate standard by which every performance of the song is measured. I like to diversify, that there are multiple versions of every song. And the songs incorporate a lot of improvisation, and an element of chance, and I think that's exciting. There's no one true formulation of a song, they have various manifestations depending on the space we're in. I like that. — Sufjan Stevens

What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal. — Albert Pike

There is a difference between a convert who is built on the rock of Christ through the Book of Mormon and stays hold of that iron rod, and one who is not. — Ezra Taft Benson

I think that music has always been restricted to media. The LP is an antiquated form, and the CD is now an antiquated form, and there's no sense grieving. Music is forever, there will always be songs. It's exciting that we're not limited to the media any more. I don't hold a precious view of my work, that it exists outside of social constructs or the confines of a platform. — Sufjan Stevens

I'm just trying to make up for lost times, and I have total awareness that when the work is coming it doesn't mean it's going to continue to come, so I'm taking advantage of this phenomenal period that I'm in now, to its fullest. — Ron Perlman

I think a lot of my interest in history now isn't so much in places and names and texts and public figures, but more in examining all the nuances and idiosyncrasies of particular stories of everyday people. And if that doesn't happen, then I usually transplant myself and my own stories to a particular historical event. Which is why you'll see me, the first person pronoun, interacting in a song about Carl Sandburg, or you'll find my [sic] interacting with Saul Bellow. It's sort of a re-rendering of history and making it my own. — Sufjan Stevens

My conception of my ideal reader has expanded quite a lot as I've matured: Ultimately when I think of my ideal reader, it's someone who's not sitting down with the intention of automatically arguing with the book: somebody who's going to give me enough slack to tell my story. — Paolo Bacigalupi

It's a mystical quality of music, that music isn't really concrete, and it's communicating abstractions about imaginary worlds. At least, my music's like that. It's not real. It's unreal, it's all fabrication. To write a song about Obama would suddenly break the spell. — Sufjan Stevens

Yoga is all about what you do, actually do, for yourself. Every competitor that is there is there for themselves. — Rajashree Choudhury

I'm not beholden to the public, and neither are the public beholden to me or my songs. I'm very much of a populist on those terms, I believe that the song is no longer mine anyway. I like to process the dispossession that happens when you play something live. I don't have a clue as to how these songs are going to plan out, whether they're going to be on a record. I don't know yet. — Sufjan Stevens

I no longer really have faith in the album anymore. I no longer have faith in the song, — Sufjan Stevens

Because of the almost irresistible pull toward conformity in modern society, what we shall call 'existential individuality' is an achievement, and not a permanent one at that. We are born biological beings but we must become existential individuals by accepting responsibility for our actions. This is an application of Nietzsche's advice to 'become what you are'. Many people never do acknowledge such responsibility but rather flee their existential individuality into the comfort of the faceless crowd. As — Thomas R. Flynn

Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather. — David Brin