Latest David Byrne Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• When it became easy enough to do dairy online, then I just thought, "Oh, I'll start doing this. I'll put the parts online that aren't going to get me in trouble. I'll save the rest for myself." It became also this kind of self-therapy. I could write about stuff that was bothering me, or personal stuff. And the very personal stuff I could edit out. But it was kind of the catharsis of getting it out and writing about it, that made me think, "Okay, I see why people do this, why they keep these diaries." So I thought, "Well, let's see what happens when I post some of it."

  David Byrne

  Writing, Thinking, People

• There's still a feeling that uncensored emotions make a good song. They don't. Pure emotion is just somebody screaming at you, or crying. It doesn't communicate anything. It has to be mediated with some skill and craft, in order to communicate it to a second, a third, or a fourth person. That doesn't make it any less real. And it doesn't make it any less true. But it does mean that, yeah, it's the combination that makes it work.

  David Byrne

  Song, Real, Mean

• A lot of people, musically anyway, have realized that they can do it, and there's an audience for it at least in their own country, and often thought a lot of countries have a diaspora that breaks out all over the place, so they have a pretty wide audience.

  David Byrne

  Country, People, Break

• The idea of making music from an imaginary culture was to give ourselves a set of restrictions and parameters within which to work. Otherwise, we might have just gone on all kinds of creative detours, some of which might have been interesting. But better we confine ourselves to something.

  David Byrne

  Giving, Interesting, Creative

• I'm drawn to the stuff that's maybe a little bit on the fringe. Part of that is just practical sometimes. We can't compete with the major labels for some acts, so you figure, "Okay, what could I introduce to people, or what do I like that is within my means?"

  David Byrne

  Mean, People, Sometimes

• There was an op-ed piece in The New York Times by an evolutionary biologist or somebody - which was a curious place for the opinion to come from - and he said that there's no such thing as a completely free, uncensored medium, that people censor themselves all the time, in deference to hurting other people's feelings, or offending other groups, or in their own, not to provoke a fight. And you do self-censor certain things, and it's not necessarily a bad thing. That's just the way human social interaction works.

  David Byrne

  Hurt, Fighting, People

• In a certain way, you get some new tools to work with, but I don't know if it ultimately makes the creative process any easier.

  David Byrne

  Creative, Creative Process

• I still feel like if I can get a song to work with, say, a basic beat, a rhythm, some chord changes, and a melody, a vocal melody - if it works with that, then I feel it's written and there's something there. So I intentionally don't get involved with arranging stuff or fussing over the sounds and the edits and the beats too much, at least not in the beginning, because I feel like then you can fool yourself that you've got something there, when you might not.

  David Byrne

  Song, Fool, Rhythm

• I should watch network television, or daytime television, because I'm not sure who all these people are who keep getting referred to in blogs and newspapers. I better get myself culturally attuned.

  David Byrne

  People, Not Sure

  Source: pitchfork.com

• Human beings have the incredible capacity for denial. I think they do. And although it's really hard to believe, I have my doubts. But my feeling is that first they have to convince themselves. First they have to justify this stuff to themselves and if they can do that, even for just the moment that it's coming out their mouth, then they can kind of mouth it with kind of believable sincerity, even if some of us.

  David Byrne

  Believe, Thinking, Feelings

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• What's been missing from digital music sales has been the possibility of added depth. In a printed package one can only include so many images and so much text - for example - but digitally it's wide open.

  David Byrne

  Missing, Possibility, Printed

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

• If I'm feeling that I have an angle or something to say or something where in a way I'm having a conversation with myself, that's immensely pleasurable.

  David Byrne

  Feelings, Way, Angle

• I'm just wearing regular street clothes. Pretty much all the time. In the summertime, or when it gets warm out, shorts and sandals or something like that. Stuff that I don't mind getting a little sweaty.

  David Byrne

  Clothes, Summertime, Mind

• I love writing. I don't claim to be great at it. Occasionally I get a good sentence off. But I love the activity.

  David Byrne

  Writing, Claims, Sentences

• A lot of cities are making a real effort, neighborhood by neighborhood, to make themselves into a place where life can be pretty good.

  David Byrne

  Real, Cities, Effort

• It's more about the stuff you think about when you're getting from place to place on a bicycle than it is about actually riding the bicycle.

  David Byrne

  Thinking, Riding, Stuff

• We've gone through the urban renewal cycle in the '60s and '70s that really did a lot of damage to the fabric of urban life - neighborhoods bulldozed and highways pushed through, and all that kind of stuff that really destroyed the kind of social underpinning and the kind of mom and pop stores and all the stuff that makes a community viable.

  David Byrne

  Mom, Urban Renewal, Community

• I don't think I have grand visions that I will never achieve.

  David Byrne

  Thinking, Vision, Achieve

  Interview with Sean O'Neal, www.avclub.com. October 15, 2008.

• What's been missing from digital music sales has been the possibility of added depth. In a printed package one can only include so many images and so much text - for example - but digitally it's wide open. For the most part at the moment we get less information for slightly less money - though we could be getting a lot more.

  David Byrne

  Missing, Information, Digital

  "Byrne, Baby, Byrne". Interview with Michael Archer, www.guernicamag.com. April 15, 2010.

• My personal feeling is that human beings have this incredible capacity for denial.

  David Byrne

  Feelings, Denial, Incredibles

  "Byrne, Baby, Byrne". Guernica Interview, www.guernicamag.com. April 15, 2010.

• I think it's really hard to make songs that pursue an agenda. You can kind of do it a little bit through a character, so the character gives voice to something or their story, the story of the character tells you something, but, for me anyway, it's really hard to write directly about politics.

  David Byrne

  Song, Writing, Character

  "Byrne, Baby, Byrne". Interview with Michael Archer, www.guernicamag.com. April 15, 2010.

• I think that if they want people to listen to ten or twelve songs, they have to give the listener a reason to listen to ten or twelve songs or to buy ten or twelve and listen to the whole thing instead of just pulling one or two for their iPod or their computer.

  David Byrne

  Song, Thinking, Two

  "Byrne, Baby, Byrne". Interview with Michael Archer, www.guernicamag.com. April 15, 2010.

• My take is that the kind of complexity which says we can always generate complexity from simple interactions following for example rules.

  David Byrne

  Simple, Example, Kind

  "Interview with David Byrne". Interview with Brian Castellani, sacswebsite.blogspot.com. May 22, 2009.

• Always be skeptical about simplicity.

  David Byrne

  Simplicity, Skeptical

  "Interview with David Byrne". Interview with Brian Castellani, sacswebsite.blogspot.com. May 22, 2009.

• I think sometimes I get carried away, like I'm speaking to an imaginary audience rather than just trying to figure something out for myself. Ideally, I try to balance that - that I'm asking these questions of myself, how does this work, why does this happen, what's going on here.

  David Byrne

  Thinking, Balance, Trying

  Interview with Chris Dahlen, pitchfork.com. July 17, 2006.