Latest Larkin Grimm Quotes from Interviews

• The Muslim women that I have met are super-powerful and amazing and smart and they are, they're not allowing themselves to be held back by the laws that exist. And you know, the Internet exists now, and mobile phones are freeing up stuff. I have a really good friend who's from Iran and a really good friend who's from Kuwait, and they talk about getting music on the black market and how that's such an intense, amazing experience. And how they value the music so much more, because it's such a risk to own it.

  Larkin Grimm

  Powerful, Smart, Good Friend

  "Swinging Modern Sounds #35: The Location Of The Soul". Interview with Rick Moody, therumpus.net. April 20, 2012.

• This is the world. I don't really believe in hell or heaven or an after life at all, I believe this is it. It can be a paradise for you, if you've got the right mindset. Or it can be a total nightmare. The song is just about remembering these moments of, you know, these epiphanies or magical moments of clarity that I think everybody has at some point in their life, often, while they're taking acid or something like that, or while they're doing really intense yoga.

  Larkin Grimm

  Song, Yoga, Believe

  Source: therumpus.net

• When I was working at Omega, I took this Zen retreat, where you're quiet, you don't say anything for a week, and this guy there said, "You're going to be enlightened at the end of this week, that's my goal." I was the engineer, so I was recording everything at it was happening, but I was also participating, because I felt like it. So at the end of it, I did understand what enlightenment was, one-hundred percent.

  Larkin Grimm

  Goal, Guy, Say Anything

  Source: therumpus.net

• You've got to deal with the world with all of its troubles, while you've still got this alternate image. It's not about being in a different place or being in heaven, it's about seeing the world through magical eyes for a moment, and then being back in that same world, and everything is dull and gray. Having to remember the color.

  Larkin Grimm

  Eye, Color, Heaven

  Source: therumpus.net

• It's the sense of walking back into the Garden of Eden or something like that. Where suddenly everything is perfect and you see how you're connected to everything in the world.

  Larkin Grimm

  Garden, Eden, Perfect

  Source: therumpus.net

• You understand your place in it, and you feel an incredible love for everyone and everything, and you're just sublimely happy, and then you're suddenly jolted back to reality, and you've got to deal with the world as it is

  Larkin Grimm

  Reality, World, Incredibles

  "Swinging Modern Sounds #35: The Location Of The Soul". Interview with Rick Moody, therumpus.net. April 20, 2012.

• They [investment bankers] don't even want the stuff that they've got, you know the fancy cars and houses. Their consumption is basically just a keeping up with the Joneses or let's buy the markers of success because this is what I'm supposed to have and this is what I'm supposed to do. And they are working so hard that they don't even have the time to think about what they might actually desire.

  Larkin Grimm

  Thinking, Fancy Cars, House

  Source: therumpus.net

• Why even live? If that's your goal, if you're just clamoring your way to the top, I mean, why even have a life? Somebody was telling me the other day about the lives of investment bankers who work ninety hours a week and how it affects their patterns of consumption.

  Larkin Grimm

  Mean, Goal, Bankers

  Source: therumpus.net

• When I met someone who I thought was really talented, I would just be like, Wow! How did you get that way? And I met a lot of people who would just do anything to claw their way to the top, and it was just shocking and awful for me to see that for the first time. And now I live in Manhattan so I have become desensitized to that.

  Larkin Grimm

  People, Awful, Way

  Source: therumpus.net

• Where you go to these really good schools, and it's all about preparing for the next step of success. That was never even on my radar. My job is to explore the world, because this is my one life, you know? That's totally how I see it. But I came to Yale just being like, Yeah, now I get to explore this place and meet all these people who are really smart. And I was just excited to be surrounded by people who were as smart as me or were probably smarter. And I just did not expect the level of competition and bitterness and anger, and, the tearing each other down.

  Larkin Grimm

  Jobs, Smart, School

  "Swinging Modern Sounds #35: The Location Of The Soul". Interview with Rick Moody, therumpus.net. April 20, 2012.

• So Nemerov showed us this picture, which is of Apollo flaying Marcius. You don't think of Apollo as being the sort of person who would skin someone alive. But the story behind it was that there was this guy who was a really great musician, and all the women loved him, and people started saying he was the best musician in the world, so Apollo got jealous and he challenged this guy to a musical dual. They would each play a song and the muses would judge who was the better musician.

  Larkin Grimm

  Song, Jealous, Thinking

  Source: therumpus.net

• I think everybody is psychic. I think it's one of the things in our subconscious that, for some reason, we've convinced ourselves that it's not real or possible, and luckily, we're getting closer and closer, I think we're using technology to give us these psychic powers that we already had. It's sort of like the idea that you can't dream up something unless it already exists.

  Larkin Grimm

  Dream, Real, Thinking

  "Swinging Modern Sounds #35: The Location Of The Soul". Interview with Rick Moody, therumpus.net. April 20, 2012.

• I started off in architecture, and I just couldn't fit into the vibe there. I just felt more at home in the Art Department, so I just ended up there. But I would be an architect if it didn't require so much engineering.

  Larkin Grimm

  Art, Home, Engineering

  Source: therumpus.net

• Like the ability of all the musicians to end the song at the right time. Or when it's time for a chord change, but nobody knows what the chord should be, and you all, you know, it all just changes, magically, at the same time. It's when you pick up your phone to call someone and that person is calling you.

  Larkin Grimm

  Song, Phones, Musician

  "Swinging Modern Sounds #35: The Location Of The Soul". Interview with Rick Moody, therumpus.net. April 20, 2012.

• I think, I just always want to leave the door open for, you know, I don't want it to be finished. I've never gotten sick of a song, I've played them over and over and over again, and if I get bored with something, then I'll just change that thing.

  Larkin Grimm

  Song, Thinking, Doors

  "Swinging Modern Sounds #35: The Location Of The Soul". Interview with Rick Moody, therumpus.net. April 20, 2012.

• Most of the musicians that I'm playing with now have jazz backgrounds, so they're comfortable with improvisation. And they all know to make eye contact with me, and I'll give them some kind of sign when I think that the song's ending. Or maybe I don't even have to, because they all sort of feel it at the same time.

  Larkin Grimm

  Song, Eye, Thinking

  Source: therumpus.net

• I just know of so many musicians who burn out because they go on tour and they have to play their one-hit song over and over and over and over again. And they are not moved by their own song. And then when you go and see them perform there's something off.

  Larkin Grimm

  Song, Play, Goes On

  "Swinging Modern Sounds #35: The Location Of The Soul". Interview with Rick Moody, therumpus.net. April 20, 2012.

• I remember reading a book that was on songwriting at some point that I found in my dad's store, and just... I did not relate at all. I've always hated structure of all kinds, it just doesn't work for me. I can never fit into the schedules of other people. It's like putting a schedule on your song, and it doesn't allow you to be moved by your own music.

  Larkin Grimm

  Song, Dad, Book

  Source: therumpus.net

• The closest thing I could think of that men go through is like a prisoner of war being tortured, and then coming back from that experience. It's traumatic and grounding and makes you commit to the world. Also, because you want all of these things for your kid.

  Larkin Grimm

  War, Kids, Men

  Source: therumpus.net

• Usually, I think it's best to play the song for them once and have them mix it up on the spot, because when the logical mind gets too involved, I think it kills a lot of magic. I just think the subconscious mind is so much smarter, and unfortunately, people do not trust their subconscious. A lot of people just don't access to all of that, the secret genius that's inside of them. And it's so much easier to get it out of a musician if you don't give them a chance to overthink.

  Larkin Grimm

  Song, Thinking, Play

  "Swinging Modern Sounds #35: The Location Of The Soul". Interview with Rick Moody, therumpus.net. April 20, 2012.

• Before I had a kid, I was off in some kind of cosmic state all of the time, and thinking about the world beyond, thinking about intellectual stuff. And then, after I had a kid, just the whole process of giving birth is just so earthy and grounding and insane and it's all just an intense physical ordeal.

  Larkin Grimm

  Kids, Thinking, Giving

  Source: therumpus.net

• There's a Buddhist story about the guy who wants to be enlightened, and then he gets a cow and a wife and a child, and all these things get in the way of his enlightenment. So, yeah, I have no chance of being enlightened.

  Larkin Grimm

  Buddhist, Children, Wife

  "Swinging Modern Sounds #35: The Location Of The Soul". Interview with Rick Moody, therumpus.net. April 20, 2012.

• I remember there was this one lady shaman who said that having children puts a hole in your soul. And the only way to get it back is for your children to die. And, you know, monks don't have families.

  Larkin Grimm

  Children, Soul, Way

  "Swinging Modern Sounds #35: The Location Of The Soul". Interview with Rick Moody, therumpus.net. April 20, 2012.

• Like the oxytocin you get as a mom makes you forget everything constantly. And I'm a totally different person after having a kid.

  Larkin Grimm

  Mom, Kids, Oxytocin

  Source: therumpus.net

• I'm totally a narcissist, so I was doing all this performance and having lots of weird ego time, and learning to set aside my love for the ego and find a deeper love for myself and through that seeing myself as one with all beings. And through loving myself, loving all people in the world, that was my cure for narcissism, the only cure.

  Larkin Grimm

  People, Ego, World

  Source: therumpus.net

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