Frank Ocean
Obviously, the cinematography of films is art, just as a still shot can be art. If I'm watching a Wes Anderson movie, the colour palettes alone, and the way they're painted, could be art. With music, you're a little bit limited, of course, because it's only audio.Collection: Alone
Art's everything we hope life would be, a lot of times.Collection: Hope
I don't fear anybody... at all.Collection: Fear
I hope not to define myself by suffering.Collection: Hope
How we experience memory sometimes, it's not linear. We're not telling the stories to ourselves. We know the story; we're just seeing it in flashes overlaid.Collection: Experience
Sometimes I'm fascinated with how famous my work could be while I'm not so famous.Collection: Famous
It's cool to be recognised by your peers.Collection: Cool
There's just some magic in truth and honesty and openness.Collection: Truth
Super-envious of the fact that Daft Punk can wear robot helmets and be one of the most famous bands in the world, while also understanding that will never be my situation.Collection: Famous
I'm about being the best.Collection: Best
People are just afraid of things too much. Afraid of things that don't necessarily merit fear.Collection: Fear
The idea of recognising your strengths and using them in as versatile a way as you can is cool to me.Collection: Cool
My music definitely comes from a place of experience. Everything connects to a truth.Collection: Experience
I feel like I was writing as I was learning to talk. Writing was always a go-to form of communication. And I knew I could sing from being in tune with the radio.Collection: Communication
I grew up in New Orleans. I had just moved into my dorm at the University of New Orleans, and I was doing laundry, and my mom called me, like, 'We've got to evacuate. There's a hurricane's coming.'Collection: Mom
I think we all change each other's paths. I don't know which law idea that is in physics, but I don't think any of us can live without affecting one another.Collection: Change
The Internet made fame wack and anonymity cool.Collection: Cool
You just do what you can and you have as much fun as possible.
You can't think; you just gotta do things.
As long as your intentions are solid and about growth and progression and being productive and not being idle, then you're doing good in my book.
The Internet is just another experiment showing us more sides of us.
I was a thug.
In art, at a certain level, there is no 'better than.' It's just about trying to operate for yourself on the most supreme level, artistically, that you can and hoping that people get it. Trusting that, just because of the way people are built and how interconnected we are, greatness will translate and symmetry will be recognised.
Boys do cry, but I don't think I shed a tear for a good chunk of my teenage years.
I'm not a centerfold.
I've written some great things. That's a gift, but there's consequences. Yeah, you get this great work, but you suffer. You really, really suffer.
This has always been my life and no one else's, and that's how it's always been since the day I came in it.
I enjoy singing my songs in front of people. I enjoy being involved in making the artwork for albums and stupid stuff like that.
The work is the work. The work is not me.
I wrote 'Channel Orange' in two weeks. The end product wasn't always that gritty, real-life depiction of the real struggle that happened.
As a lifestyle you always being the focal point is innately unhealthy.
You gotta make sure the listener is listening to you, so if you put it into a song, often times, if the song is striking enough, then you can really deliver the story most effectively while keeping the ear of the listener the whole time.
I don't have any secrets I need kept any more.
I'm big on what's in good taste.
I play piano every day. I enjoy that.
I worked my face off.
Some people focus more on sonics. Some people focus more on story. I focus on both sonics and story, but music sometimes, just music itself, can turn into more of a maths problem. I guess everything in life is a math problem, but it can be more about an empirical route to getting the symmetry that you want, and this vibe, sonically.
A friend of mine jokes that I have a painstaking royalty complex. Like maybe I was a duke in a past life.
I had writer's block for almost a year.
I guess I'm just inspired to tell stories.
I believe that I'm one of the best in the world at what I do, and that's all I've ever wanted to be.
I respect Drake not only as a creative person but as a business mind as well. I think Drake's important.
We all know we have a finite period of time. I just feel if I'm going to be alive, I want to be challenged - to be as immortal as possible. The path to that isn't an easy way, but it's a rewarding way.
Here's what I think about music and journalism: The most important thing is to just press play.
It's hard to articulate how I think about myself as a public figure.
I have no delusions about my likability in every scenario. I know that in order to get things done the way you want them, oftentimes your position will be unpopular.
It's more interesting for me to figure out how to be superior in areas where I'm naive, where I'm a novice.
When I was growing up, there was nobody in my family - not even my mother - who I could look to and be like, 'I know you've never said anything homophobic.' So, you know, you worry about people in the business who you've heard talk that way. Some of my heroes coming up talk recklessly like that.
I'm extremely compassionate, loving, all of those warm fuzzy things, but the outer shell doesn't project that all the time.
As a writer, as a creator, I'm giving you my experiences. But just take what I give you. You ain't got to pry beyond that.