Ezra Furman Quotes
-
I don't think I'll ever be able to fully explain the way that the Velvet Underground's records opened a door in my head. But it has something to do with Lou Reed as a mythic figure: a person who fitted no category, who defied limits and trends and definitions.
-
I think rock'n'roll essence is what made it good and has a lot in common with what originally made monotheism good - it's against everything that is fixed, all the social structures that you can't go past.
-
Just being a normal person and having a social life involves a lot of dishonesty for me.
-
Not only am I a shy person, I take a little while to say what I mean, especially in a social situation, and usually those move too fast for me to say anything at all.
-
I had so many secrets and so much social repression throughout my life. I guess I'm just a shy person and feel like my true self is unacceptable to most people.
-
I feel like my consignment and fear from people pushed me to become a performer.
-
I always felt like I had a punk album waiting to be made.
-
You have to be an anti-racist to not be racist. Because it's just a cultural tide that will pull you into it if you're not swimming against it.
-
I am frustrated at misconceptions of me, and being cast in a role.
-
The Bible was so revolutionary and against all that came before it. It was a force for siding with the oppressed and a rebellion against hierarchical, ancient societies. Now it's institutionalized and all the life has been sucked out of it.
-
I get stage fright really bad sometimes, so touring has been hard on me in a lot of ways. But despite that, I love performing.
-
A repressed person overcoming their repression always makes good music.
-
We music fans go to shows for transcendence; it's like being called to prayer.
-
I guess I just do being a man different than some.
-
I'm in this effort to unify my life and to live day to day in a disciplined way, to be real at all times, not just in front of people, or not just in a synagogue.
-
We need a lot more visibility of queer people in public life. People gotta get used to it.
-
I think most of the work of songwriting is thinking of great phrases - I'm addicted, always on the hunt for a really great phrase.
-
I like going to bed early and getting up early, but that doesn't happen on tour.
-
I think there's a large worry in queer communities about imitating straight people, when queerness has its own identity and maybe can be a radical force that should be dismantling stuff that locks people into structures.
-
I don't really believe in trying to erase every Woody Allen movie from history. For one thing, that's kind of unfair to all the people who worked on those movies or albums or whatever it is. What did they do wrong to have their work erased from culture?
-
I was pretty much into punk rock and that's all I cared about. I was into Green Day and the Ramones. I wanted to get a guitar so I could play punk songs because this kid taught me power chords at summer camp.
-
What really is wild about rock 'n' roll? Nothing. It's so banal and so part of corporate culture. It threatens to lose all its life.
-
I always maintain that artists do not have any responsibility to do anything except cause no harm and do whatever we want to do as artists.
-
I was thinking very carefully about going into education, becoming a teacher, maybe becoming a rabbi.