Latest Sufjan Stevens Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• My siblings and I were raised like tenants, to be honest. There was a total absence of intimacy in my family, though there was still a great deal of camaraderie among the kids. Things were set up almost like a business, and it had to be managed that way because we were really poor, and there were a lot of mouths to feed.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Sibling, Kids, Honest

  Source: pitchfork.com

• 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.

• It's nice for me to have a ballet as a kind of platform for creativity, because unlike modern dance or contemporary dance or downtown dance, ballet is formalized, and there's something orthodox about it that I like. I like that there's less emphasis on subversion and innovation. I actually think that my musical vernacular or my musical voice is also less inclined toward innovation and subversion. I think I'm a traditionalist.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Nice, Creativity, Thinking

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• 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

• I'm not beholden to the public, and neither are the public beholden to me or my songs. I'm very much of a populist on those terms, I believe that the song is no longer mine anyway. I like to process the dispossession that happens when you play something live. I don't have a clue as to how these songs are going to plan out, whether they're going to be on a record. I don't know yet.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Song, Believe, Play

  Source: thequietus.com

• I think that music has always been restricted to media. The LP is an antiquated form, and the CD is now an antiquated form, and there's no sense grieving. Music is forever, there will always be songs. It's exciting that we're not limited to the media any more. I don't hold a precious view of my work, that it exists outside of social constructs or the confines of a platform.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Song, Thinking, Grieving

  Source: thequietus.com

• I'm no longer beholden to the sacredness of the recorded song as some kind of ultimate standard by which every performance of the song is measured. I like to diversify, that there are multiple versions of every song. And the songs incorporate a lot of improvisation, and an element of chance, and I think that's exciting. There's no one true formulation of a song, they have various manifestations depending on the space we're in. I like that.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Song, Thinking, Space

  Source: thequietus.com

• I felt that there's an obligation when writing a piece about an urban expressway made in the 50s to acknowledge the context, and Robert Moses is sort of an iconic figure in New York, and he influenced the shape of the city more than anyone else before or after him. He was one of the most powerful and influential civic architects in the world, because of how much he transformed the city. He built multiple bridges and highways and parks and recreational spaces, beaches - in the course of a few decades, he completely changed the city

  Sufjan Stevens

  Beach, New York, Powerful

  Source: thequietus.com

• 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

• 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.

• I want to throw my voice more, I want to manipulate melody more... I want to be less deliberate and mechanical... I want less melody.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Voice, Want, Manipulate

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

• There's such a magnitude of record taking. It's so exhaustive. Bandwidth and hard drive space are able to accommodate limitless capacities to take a record of anything and everything.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Space, Records, Anything And Everything

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

• I've been working a lot on figuring out how to sing differently and better. I want to become a better singer. I want to sing out more. I want to me more extroverted, vocally.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Want, Singers, Working A Lot

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

• I'm terrified of just being myself because I think it's boring. I know who I really am and I think it's boring.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Thinking, Just Being, Boring

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

• My only concern about art collaborations is that I never thought of myself as an Artist. My tax forms say Musician/Songwriter.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Art, Collaboration, Musician

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

• The Internet is manic. It's very strange. I don't think it's healthy. They should outlaw posting comments! It's a bummer to go somewhere to get information or buy tickets and you encounter profanity everywhere you go.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Thinking, Healthy, Encounters

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I think musicians should stay off television generally. I get asked all the time. Those shows are just promoting insipid comedies. Who watches those shows? And whoever does I don't think my music would speak to those people. I don't even want those people to hear what I'm doing.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Thinking, People, Musician

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• 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.

• 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.

• It's traumatic to meditate on the availability of information through the Internet, or the way we perceive the world as a result. People don't experience things totally or viscerally anymore. It's all through representation, be it a record on YouTube or a post on a blog.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Availability, People, Records

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

• 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.

• 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.

• 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

• 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.

• There is nothing more incredible and moving and appealing than good music, and it cannot always be reduced to a story, to exposition. It's so much more abstract and brilliant.

  Sufjan Stevens

  Moving, Stories, Brilliant

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