Sufjan Stevens Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• The Internet is just one big gossip chamber - that's why it's so fascinating and entertaining. It's a fabulous platform for superficial communication.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Communication, Gossip, Fabulous

  "It’s Sufjan Stevens’ Way or the Highway". Interview with Brandon Stosuy, www.interviewmagazine.com. November 30, 2009.

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• My Dad used to say that the balance of the world relied on all of the monks who were living outside of society in creative isolation. I don't quite understand the ascetic life or the private life or the monastic private life. But I definitely understand privacy's value.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Dad, Creative, Balance

  "It’s Sufjan Stevens’ Way or the Highway". Interview with Brandon Stosuy, www.interviewmagazine.com. November 30, 2009.

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• I'm always hearing music in terms of what I can take out of it, and I think I've always listened like that. I have a hard time just listening for pleasure. I'm much less about instinct, and more of a utilitarian listener.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Hard Times, Thinking, Listening

  Interview with Jason Crock, pitchfork.com. May 15, 2006.

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• Public school felt like prison - cinderblock walls, fluorescent lights, metal lockers. It was so sterile and unstimulating.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Wall, School, Light

  "State trouper". Interview with Lynsey Hanley, www.theguardian.com. November 20, 2005.

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• Some of my music requires an obsessive-compulsive approach and a real embodiment of excessiveness. So I really have to live in that world of overstimulation. Sometimes I think it's like a drug; more is more, and you can never get enough. The older I get, the more I crave that excessive aesthetic. It's never going to satisfy me.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Real, Thinking, Drug

  Interview with Ryan Dombal, pitchfork.com. January 31, 2011.

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• An imaginary baby is so much easier than a real baby. No diapers to change.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Baby, Real, Diapers

  Interview with Jason Crock, pitchfork.com. May 15, 2006.

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• I don't really have a domestic inclination. Even my apartment has a semblance of a storage facility. It's just stacks, there are no bookshelves, just books and piles of stamp collections and weird little sewing and knitting projects.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Book, Knitting, Littles

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• If there's any kind of morality, for me, it's about reality; what is reality? I have a hard time distinguishing what is valuable when it comes to the real world and the fantasy world. Like, should I invest my time in the ordinary world or the imaginary world?

  Sufjan Stevens

  Real, Hard Times, Ordinary World

  Interview with Ryan Dombal, pitchfork.com. January 31, 2011.

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• I no longer really have faith in the album anymore. I no longer have faith in the song.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Song, Albums, Have Faith

  "Sufjan Stevens: On the Road to Find Out". Interview with Kate Kiefer, www.pastemagazine.com. November 2, 2009.

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• I have a lot of friends who have hula-hoops, it's like a mixture of dance and athletics and exercise, meditation. It's a healthy hobby I think. I can do a few tricks, I can hoop from my neck and shoulders, and I can do a few moves, a few tricks! I can walk through the hoop whilst it's spinning. I feel like there's definitely an interest in promoting the hula-hoop as an important pastime!

  Sufjan Stevens

  Moving, Exercise, Thinking

  Source: thequietus.com

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• 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

  Song, Real, Writing

  Source: thequietus.com

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• Tuesday night at the Bible study we lift our hands and pray over your body, but nothing ever happens.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Night, Hands, Tuesday

  Song: Casimir Pulaski Day, 2005

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• I think of the saddest thing I can and then add a sick dog to that. If I think of a sick dog from the beginning, I just stop there.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Dog, Thinking, Sick

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• That's really where my heart is, unfortunately - I'm less interested in songwriting and more into just making noise.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Heart, Noise, My Heart

  Interview with Ryan Dombal, pitchfork.com. January 31, 2011.

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• Fiction has always been a thorn in my side, because I've always wanted to be a writer but I can't seem to really do it.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Sides, Fiction, Wanted

  Interview with Jason Crock, pitchfork.com. May 15, 2006.

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• I'm from the generation that's always been recording, from the very beginning. I learned to play the guitar on the four-track. I started listening to music at a time when people were doing recording at home, when the discussion about songwriting correlated to the discussion about producing and engineering. I think that's a description of my generation.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Home, Thinking, Guitar

  Interview with Jason Crock, pitchfork.com. May 15, 2006.

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• I remember Detroit feeling really unsafe, feeling scared a lot. Our house was broken into, our car was stolen, we had to get a watchdog, we would get beat up in the street, I had my bike stolen. There was just a lot of real anarchy on the streets and sidewalks.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Real, Broken, Car

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• The music is the imperative. It has the upper hand. I think all music, even though it's an abstraction, does motivate a particular meaning. Then it's the job of the musician to honor that meaning and to somehow implement lyrical material that can accommodate that emotional environment.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Jobs, Emotional, Thinking

  Interview with Jason Crock, pitchfork.com. May 15, 2006.

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• Pro Tools is an incredible resource. I think it's enabled me to do things that I wouldn't have been able to do without this kind of computer editing.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Thinking, Editing, Tools

  Interview with Noel Murray, www.avclub.com. July 13, 2005.

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• Life is all about toiling and labor. But obviously I get great joy in confronting challenge and taking risk.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Joy, Challenges, Risk

  Interview with Ryan Dombal, pitchfork.com. January 31, 2011.

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• There's nothing cutting edge about what I'm trying to do. I'm not creating a new sound. I'm not like Bjork, who's an alien from another world. I'm of the earth. You could extract any measure of music out of anything I've ever done and you could find its affiliations in music history.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Cutting, Trying, Done

  "Sufjan Stevens and Justin Peck in Motion". interview with Matt Mullen, www.interviewmagazine.com. May 12, 2017.

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• I've always been obsessed with electronics and using computers and software. It's always been part of my vernacular.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Electronics, Computer, Obsessed

  Source: articles.chicagotribune.com

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• Growing up on the border there, we were always frustrated with people's pronunciations of towns in Michigan, and people mispronouncing Illinois. There are all these Native American words that no one really knows how to pronounce.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Growing Up, Native American, Illinois

  Interview with Noel Murray, www.avclub.com. July 13, 2005.

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• We live in community, and we're created in community. We're created out of the unity of two people, and then we're made into a family. It's just inherent in who we are.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Two, People, Community

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• I was feeling privileged and self-conscious about my life as a musician, which feels self-absorbed. I can't help it, I am a musician. This is what I do.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Self, Feelings, Musician

  "It’s Sufjan Stevens’ Way or the Highway". Interview with Brandon Stosuy, www.interviewmagazine.com. November 30, 2009.

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