Sufjan Stevens Quotes

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

• Music
• Environment
• Emotional
• Honor
• Musician
• Lyrical

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Quotes to Explore

• I don't think I knew that you could be a novelist. I think a lot of my students are in the same condition. I thought it was unreachable, that it was sort of dead people. It took me a long time - I think I was well into novel writing before I really thought, 'Actually, this is a valid pastime.'

  

  Rachel Cusk
  • People
  • Time
  • Long

• In the case of my book, I don't think it's really the coming-out gay novel that everyone really needed, even though it was received as such. The boy is too creepy, he betrays his teacher, the only adult man with whom he's enjoyed a sexual experience, etc.

  

  Edmund White
  • Experience
  • Book
  • Man

• In politics you must always keep running with the pack. The moment that you falter and they sense that you are injured, the rest will turn on you like wolves.

  

  R. A. Butler
  • Running
  • Rest
  • Politics

• I never wanted to give up my given name. I'm proud of it, but the only problem was that no one remembered it. It was just a little too awkward, and they mispronounced it so frequently.

  

  Warren Kole
  • Up
  • Problem
  • Proud

• There is an idea of democracy produced by one-sided thinking.

  

  Omar Bongo
  • Thinking
  • Democracy
  • Idea

• It is wonderful to say that your days behind a school desk are over. It's just another phase in your life.

  

  Natalie du Toit
  • Life
  • School
  • Desk

• Leaders are people who do the right thing; managers are people who do things right.

  

  Warren Bennis
  • People
  • Do The Right Thing

• In high school, my English teacher Celeste McMenamin introduced me to the great novels and Shakespeare and taught me how to write. Essays, poetry, critical analysis. Writing is a skill that was painful then but a love of mine now.

  

  Aaron Lazar
  • Great
  • Writing
  • School

• A smart phone essentially creates a dossier of your travels, and consumers have no control over who will eventually see that information.

  

  Adam Cohen
  • Control
  • Smart
  • Information

• I'm an actor, and I'm supposed to reflect real people.

  

  Tamsin Greig
  • People
  • Real
  • Reflect

• Don't get me wrong: I would not say no to an Oscar!

  

  Carice van Houten
  • Me
  • Say
  • Wrong

• I realize I have strength as an artist and professional by embracing my difference instead of what makes me the same.

  

  Ira Sachs
  • Professional
  • Same
  • Strength

• I get more upset at losing at other things than chess. I always get upset when I lose at Monopoly.

  

  Magnus Carlsen
  • Lose
  • Losing
  • Chess

• I studied at a grammar school and later at the University of Vienna in the Faculty of Medicine.

  

  Karl von Frisch
  • School
  • Medicine
  • Grammar

• Sense perceptions can be and often are false and deceptive, however real they may appear to us. Where there is realization outside the senses, it is infallible. It is proved not by extraneous evidence but in the transformed conduct and character of those who have felt the real presence of God within.

  

  Mahatma Gandhi
  • God
  • Real
  • May

• I myself am a parent in a small business. Number of employees: one.

  

  P. J. O'Rourke
  • Business
  • Small
  • Myself

• The writing gets done away from the keyboard and away from the studio in my head, in solitude. And then I come in and hopefully have something, then I wrestle with sounds and picture all day long. But the ideas usually come from a more obscure place, like a conversation with a director, a still somebody shows you, or whatever.

  

  Hans Zimmer
  • Long
  • Writing
  • Done

• I was free when I was 12 because I got my first skateboard. I've been free ever since.

  

  Harmony Korine
  • Free
  • First
  • Ever

• Like birds landing on a tree top together, and then dispersing, we are together for a very short time, so it makes sense to live in harmony, in unconditional friendship.

  

  Bokar Rinpoche
  • Friendship
  • Harmony
  • Short Time

• When you mix fashion and politics, you get fascism. Politics have fashion, and it's bad; fashion has politics, that are ugly.

  

  Nate Lowman
  • Bad
  • Fashion
  • Politics

• You walked in on the sly Scopin' for love In the crowd, I caught your eye You can't hide your stuff.You came to catch You thought I'd be naive and tame You met your match I beat you at your own game.

  

  Aretha Franklin
  • Game

• I’ve got to go and check my stock.

  

  R. M. Williams
  • Stock
  • Check

• When I was in school, you could pick any instrument you want, and they'd teach you how to play it. That changed my life. I loved playing music in school, and it sent me on my path as a musician.

  

  Flea Jane's Addiction
  • Life
  • Music
  • School

• 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
  • Music
  • Environment
  • Emotional