Ben Folds Quotes

In many ways, I've chosen to be plain, almost too plain, too self-effacing. Like, if I record a vocal and I don't like the way it sounds, I would have them turn it up and take the reverb off it to make it as plain as possible.

Rock and roll is - and should be - a kid's place.

I divorce myself from listeners who aren't tolerant of humor. I did notice universally that, especially when it comes to weight, people look in the mirror and get the angle just right, tell themselves it's all right, and then they go out.

You never know when you put out an album that's unique whether it'll get beat up for it or not.

If you can't draw a crowd, draw dicks on the wall

I think alcohol is a good drug for me when I'm writing. I don't think I've ever had a problem with it. I can stop for a few weeks, so I think it's okay. I don't think it's good for my liver, but I do love it. It's a huge part of my life, and it makes me happy.

I accept that one day, my music will be gone forever. So will the Sistine Chapel, Bruce Lee movies, and all the silly arts and crafts my aunt ever bought. Gone with the wind. Making songs is something I do here and now. Because light captured is just a moment, a flicker.

The nature of honesty is that if someone has information or knows something about you that you don't want heard, then they have power over you.

The press is like any business. It's a group of really intelligent individuals that ends up being one slathering, one-eyed, drooling monster.

I don't leave my neighborhood. I don't go anywhere. There are four blocks I live in and there are two coffee shops, one at each end of the block ... so I don't do much driving ... Some people would say they never see me because I don't go anywhere. I stay in the blue state of Nashville, in my bubble.

Everybody knows it hurts to grow up ... and we're still fighting it.

Here's my suggestion to musicians: When you're about to reach for whatever musical tools you use, virtual or real, guitar or computer, ask yourself if you're doing so to save time or because you don't feel like straining your brain. Or, more important, ask yourself if you have anything to say yet. If not, keep working (or playing) upstairs, in your brain. Sure, it's okay to react to what happens when playing with the tools -- or the way a chord sounds, a loop, or even an accident. But make sure you express what you wanted to say or what you imagined. Don't let your tools make you their bitch.

Maybe this is wrong, but I feel like I craft my songs carefully enough that I still find that fifteen years after having written one, it still works for me - I'm not cringing.

I could probably live in Bali the rest of my life and completely live in the sticks and have a f - king moped and make a record every couple of years and not step in public and break even like I do anyway. That's really tempting.

I look to an out gay man or woman as pretty much what I would aspire to. The strength that it takes to do that and the floodgates that open and what they pay for it.

It's like being in the position of - in half of the industry's mind, you're kind of a cult-following, independent rocker. And on the other hand, you're a sellout. But neither one of them are right.

The music business is a weird business. Sometimes licensing doesn't happen because some business component that you never knew about stops it.

I'm aware that I'm very fringe, and it's nice that way.

I think a lot of good directors listen to music while they're working. The songs just don't become a part of the film. They're replaced.

But I really do have a soft spot for the solo shows. Any musician who writes and sings will tell you that's the center of it, that is it. It's almost like there's something church-like about it and you gotta go back there, if you're a songwriter that sings your material.

And I twisted it wrong just to make it right
Had to leave myself behind

I'm really good at writing 'almost hits'.

My idea is to play with the people who you know want to get it right. Then it's fun and easy to record, and you can get down to details, like taking out cymbals so the verse doesn't dwarf the chorus, something like that.

I'm not really a strange person or anything, so if there's music I like, usually there's other people who like it too.

Being capable of anything is a bullshit concept, unless it means you also admit that you're capable of cheating, lying and killing.

Notes don't make music until you learn to insert silence between them.

You have made me smile again; in fact I may be sore from it- it's been awhile.

The nice thing about age is worrying less and less about what people think.

People learn at the rate they are going to learn.

Now that I have found someone, I'm feeling more alone ... than I ever have before.

My parents told me I must get married. I was seen as a failure if I didn't do it.

I want people to listen to my lyrics and be okay with themselves. The people who have it the roughest are homosexuals who come out of the closet.

If the melody is telling me this is what the song is about, then I'm sort of forced into confession, autobiography or fantasy. If I don't do that, I've hamstrung the melody.

Billy Joel and Joe Jackson were both great, and they both play piano.

I do have that mindset - that most good art comes from some turmoil, from someone trying to come to some equilibrium, or come up and get a breath.

I'm older than I was, and I'm still washed-up, and I haven't changed my music one iota. It's just much easier to do this when people are being nice to you.

It's a tough thing to know that when you're making your album, you're going to end up collaborating with, say, Wal-Mart, on your artwork. That just sucks. And the pressure behind getting the numbers real fast is, to me, dizzying.

They're into something that is too big to be expressed through their clothes.

With the a cappella groups, every voice is like one string on a guitar, one note on the piano, or one cymbal, and you don't have the luxury of falling back on anything.

If you're afraid they might discover your redneck past, there are a hundred ways to cover your redneck past.

What stupid f - king idiot gets married a second time if the first time didn't work out?

The way I see it, there's only one melody for any song.

White people don't sing together very often, and when they do, it's about the celebrity of the song. The singing at my shows is all about harmony.

Because I write very simply, but inside the simplicity, there's a lot of subtlety. That's what I'm proud of.

You can't really control how people hear stuff. It's hard to remember that. I have to let go of it.

I think people use temp music quite a bit, but the people who write the temp music don't ever really learn that their music was inspiring a movie.

And all I really want to say is you're the reason I want to stay.

The cruelest lies are often told without a word
The kindest truths are often spoken, never heard

I'm romantically inclined. No human being on Earth is not attracted to other people. There is no fairy tale that they only have eyes for you. You just choose to act on it or not.

Off the coast and I'm headed nowhere