Ariel Pink
I love it when other people can come up with ideas and tell me what to do.
I get to live down my reputation for being cantankerous if I slowly evolve towards being a really good live show.
I have a theory: I believe that with the advent of the United States and the lawful definition of marriage, it was defined as between one man and one woman. It was anti-polygamy, in effect saying no man can hoard his women.
I know when somebody's heard my music. I can hear it in their music.
I feel like I'm neither a girl nor a boy. I don't feel like a man.
I was just very into things that were the opposite of what other people liked. I didn't want to listen to music that I could find at a friend's house. My identity was really forged around that, and you know, eventually that kind of identity gets dismantled and fed to the vultures. But I was somehow on my own mission.Collection: Opposites
I'm not dissatisfied, just not satisfied in an ultimate sense.Collection: Satisfied
The ideal is to live forever, right? Or to live right now and just be grateful that I feel good. I'm definitely grateful for every second that I'm alive. At this point in my life, I definitely take time out throughout the day to just stop and be like, "Everything is cool." It's as good as it's gonna be, because it only gets worse.Collection: Grateful
The things that keep me awake at night are things like textures and instrumentation and plotting out what things are going to do and what the sounds are that I'm trying to capture.Collection: Night
It’s not illegal to be an asshole. It’s not illegal to be racist, even. It’s not illegal to do anything.Collection: Racist
It's not illegal to be an asshole.Collection: Illegal
There's always room for improvement. I'm always focused on the results, and those are the precise things that I don't really experience as a part of the performance.Collection: Rooms
I dont want any injustice brought against the bullies. Bullies just dont know any better. Anyone who is crying about police brutality or victimization as an adult needs to stop it and realize the privileges we have in this country.Collection: Country
My goal is to make something special and pure, and that keeps me going, keeps me busy on the path of sobriety.Collection: Goal
I would die to record in space. That would be the coolest. If I got the option of, going into outer space and hanging out there for a day, and then coming back home and dying the next day, or just waiting around to see if there's any opportunity for the technology to develop so that I might experience outer space sometime in the future, I would probably take the ride today and die tomorrow. I'd be happy just hanging out between the moon and the Earth, getting a view.Collection: Home
As soon as you start to think of that thing that you want to convey or say, you can always just say it much better than you can actually rhyme it or stuff it into a song. It's very, very difficult to just kind of get your point across without going the back way. And you have to be good at that, to not think about things so hard. Let the pen take over, so that it's somebody else's job to dissect the lyrics and tell you what you're all about.Collection: Song
I procrastinate, and I push writing to the last available moment, because I don't like to settle on anything. I guess you can call it indecision or you can call it holding out for inspiration.Collection: Inspiration
It's just about pushing yourself to realms that are uncharted. I love to get to that place where I don't know what kind of music I'm doing, I don't know if it's any good, I don't know if it's anything. It's a big question mark. The idea is to have interesting results. That's my bottom line. Not just a creative fantasy world or something like that, but a mood too.Collection: Ideas
I tried to just do things like make some money, be responsible, help out other artists who I see have had a similar path.Collection: Artist
I dont think I threw myself into music because I had the best intentions; it was because I was really angry.Collection: Thinking
I was definitely a thespian of sorts in elementary school. I went to a real small private school and every year I participated in the talent shows and the school plays, all of 'em.Collection: Real
I love having the impulsivity to change course. I think it's key to keeping things fresh.Collection: Thinking
At 35, I'm thinking, Oh, I don't have any of that initial inspiration that I had before, all that angst. I always thought I would burn out very quickly.Collection: Inspiration
I've learned that I shouldn't shrink from success. Though honestly I thought they'd be knocking on my door years ago.Collection: Doors
It's really the creature of my own making from top to bottom. I appreciate that. And the good fortune, the perseverance, having the stamina to stick around longer than everyone else even after people write you off - that's always been a good motivating force in my life.Collection: Perseverance
I don't work under the illusion that I'm the next whatever. Every time a record comes out, if it gets a good review, I'm like, "Well, one more year, guys. We bought ourselves another year".Collection: Years
Funnily enough, I feel the most free to be myself when I'm not doing my solo project. Whenever I'm in a situation when it's a side thing or it's something not so infused with my ego. When I'm all over everything, it's a big responsibility and half the time leaves me in some weird nether state of insecurity and doubt.Collection: Responsibility
As for performing live, I just never imagined how it would work out; for good reason, because it doesn't just work out - not the way you think it will. It's a chance that you take.Collection: Thinking
My music already has this oldish kind of quality to it, like you don't necessarily know what era it was recorded in, so it all kind of felt surreal and weird. Night after night when I played live, I was really trying to figure it out in real time, and I still don't know what effect I'm going for or what effect I actually achieve. Looking back, I feel like it would be arrogant of me not to appreciate the fact that I've been able to do whatever I want and still have an audience come see me.Collection: Real
In the years between 2000 and 2004, I always got the feeling that people were just starting to hear about me and they were all late to the game. I'd be out playing shows for records that I recorded back in 1999 that were just coming out.Collection: Years
I remember being very psyched for our first tours, despite not knowing about the endless stream of situations and setbacks that we'd face.Collection: Knowing
I envisioned all these people who had been admired for having been freaks in their own time, and I saw myself in line with them.Collection: People
The universe is expanding, and every second that you're alive, the universe is bigger than it was a second before. There's nothing in front of us, exactly, other than the future, and there's no space for the size, the density of the universe to go. Because it's expanding at every point simultaneously.Collection: Space
I hate not understanding the words, because it kind of squashes the song. It shrinks the visual landscape that you've made for the sounds. And, all of a sudden, the content eclipses things.Collection: Song
It was not designed for me to be 35 and still doing the same thing. But in another sense, it's like I've had an extended adolescence. It helps that I look young, too.Collection: Looks
For me, self-gratification eventually took a backseat to trying to do something collaborative with other people, to trying to make something new.Collection: Self
I've kind of gotten more timid. I used to be fearless - at a certain point I didn't care about what anybody thought. I had all the answers and I could have been as bad as I wanted to be. But nowadays I just want to be good and make people happy.Collection: People
From day one, I was already famous in my own head. It didn't take anything to make me feel that way. I know I'm totally not famous. I mean, it just depends on your perspective.Collection: Mean
You marry your friends when you stay with your friends. It's hard enough to find a good roommate, let alone a good person you can live with and fall in love with at the same time. You might as well just take your roommate, if you can find one, and marry them. I mean, if you can find somebody that doesn't drive you crazy, I would say marry that.Collection: Falling In Love
I always want to be a member in the audience, and I want to hear it from their point of view and see it from their point of view so I can know if it's good. But that's just my issues, not a real problem.Collection: Real
I definitely don't feel a sense of jealousy or competition, and that's a really good feeling.Collection: Competition
You can pout about the way the world is as long as you want, but that's not going to change it. You've got to figure it out.Collection: Long
Everything comes with hard work. You never get to stop working. I don't see myself ever getting comfortable enough to not have to worry about working.Collection: Hard Work
I always want to do something that just sort of fits the mood. It's supposed to help the song, it's not supposed to take away from the song or re-contextualize it. I always feel like the less you make it a conceptual territorial debut, the better.Collection: Song
The first half of high school, I had a girlfriend, and then the second half I got to know these guys who would just get stoned and jam. I had struck the goth thing by then, but I still thought of myself as Ian Curtis or something.Collection: Girlfriend
I had my gothy phase, but I was never a troublemaker or anything like that.Collection: Phases
The music usually occurs to me as a complete sound, and then I have developed the skill of being able to translate that into a fully realized song.Collection: Song
I've always wanted to do a movie, and I really feel the urge to do it.I'm in Hollywood - I have no business not being in the movie industry.Collection: Hollywood
Talk about a struggling artist having to work against enormous odds ... But I love movies so much, so I'm going to do it.Collection: Struggle