Elliott Smith Quotes

What I used to be will pass away and then you'll see
That all I want now is happiness for you and me

Static in my head, the reflected sound of everything, tried to go to where it led, but it didn't lead to anything.

I was coming off of a lot of psyche meds and other things.

I liked the idea of a self-contained, endless pursuit of perfection. But I have a problem with perfection. I don't think perfection is very artful. But there's something I liked about the image of a skater going in this endless twisted circle that doesn't have any real endpoint. So the object is not to stop or arrive anywhere; it's just to make this thing as beautiful as they can.

It's hard to represent chaos, or like an absence of something. It's much easier to represent the presence of something or a situation.

And I'm not trying to write heavy songs.

It's just that a lot of songs that are popular right now, they don't have any meaning.

I actually don't think that I'm gonna sell a lot of records.

Nothing's gonna drag me down to a death that's not worth cheating.

I don't really like New York better than Portland. It's just a different place.

People are so ... seem so chaotic internally, but being filtered through some form, like making a record, sort of filters it down into something that can be understood.

People think they know all these things about other people, and if you ask them why they think they know that, it'd be hard for them to be convincing.

Everything means nothing to me

Music is worth doing just because. It doesn't have to be justified by some political point of view, and it's kind of insulting to the music to make it a tool for something else.

My girlfriend at the time convinced me to send these songs to Cavity Search. When they wanted to put out my record I was totally shocked.

I don't think it's important who I am. I really like playing music, but I don't really want to be anything in particular.

Haven't laughed this hard in a long time. I better stop now before I start crying. Go off to sleep in the sunshine ... I don't want to see the day when its dying.

Well, I try not to think about the general public since I have no idea what the general public is and I don't think anybody does.

In The Lost And Found (Honky Bach)"

He held his breath to hold your hand
To walk the stairsteps in pairs
Climbing up a slippery slope
I'm in love, love I hope
Don't go home Angelina
Stay with me, hanging around in the lost and found
He kissed you quick, feeling weird
Lonely leered, and disappeared
This is such a simple place
The passing time can't erase
Don't go home Angelina
Paint tomorrow blue
Day breaks
But every morning when he wakes he thinks of you
I'm alone, but that's okay
I don't mind most of the time
I don't feel afraid to die
She was here, passing by
Don't go home Angelina
Stay with me, hanging around in the lost and found
Stay with me, hanging around in the lost and found

You can't get better at things you never play.

I rode on a float in one of the parades in Mississippi. It's an experience.

I'm the wrong kind of person to be really big and famous.

It was kind of ridiculous to carry it up to a certain point and then drop the ball or the bomb, like quitting the band right after we had signed to Virgin.

The band's filter, but playing live is a lot of fun.

I didn't have a hard time making it, I had a hard time letting it go.

Theres a bunch of Elvis Costello records that made all the difference between feeling like a total freak and feeling like ... only a freak. A freak among other freaks

The devil's script sells you the heart of a blackbird.

It was hard to sing like how I wanted to because playing live I had to just be at the top of my lungs all the time, and it made me sound like I had a really bad cold or something.

I don't think that Dreamworks would have signed me expecting to really mess around with whatever it is I do.

i'm never gonna know you now, but i'm gonna love you anyhow

Certain songs just feel a way that's hard to put into words and it's not happy and it's also not really sad but I couldn't say what it is

I just wanted to move out of Portland to do something.

But I was also doing odd jobs around Portland, like spreading gravel and transplanting bamboo trees.

I wondered if I would talk about drug use. But I guess, why hide it?

There's always that argument to make - that you're in better company historically if people don't understand what you're doing.

I like home recordings and studio recordings just as much as each other - I don't think one is better - but for this record I wanted to see what I could do in a real studio with real producers.

A lot of people are kind of depressed. I'm happy some of the time, and some of the time I'm not.

I watched myself put my paw in the bear trap on that one because there was this clause about leaving members.

If I seem to be reckless with myself,It's the fault of no one.All things have a placeUnder the moon as well as the sun.

I think the suggestion that all my songs are personal is insulting because that assumes that I have a bunch of issues that I feel the need to unload on strangers. That is not the case. It also assumes that I just talk about myself the whole time which, again, is not true.

I didn't think I was gonna be playing on the Oscars or anything.

So if somebody writes a song that appears to have some meaning then everybody thinks that it's a really heavy song.

Everybody gets a tag. If you listen to a Velvet Underground record, you don't think, 'Godfathers of Punk.' You just think, 'This sounds great.' The tags are there in order to help try to sell something by giving it a name that's going to stick in somebody's memory. But it doesn't describe it. So 'depressing' isn't a word I would use to describe my music. But there is some sadness in it
there has to be, so that the happiness in it will matter.

Fights problems with bigger problems.

Burning every bridge that I cross to find some beautiful place to get lost.

Somewhere where people aren't so mad would be nice, but I don't know if there is anywhere like that.

It's a lot easier to tell the truth usually.

I got tired of doing battle with people thinking I was a little weird because I wasn't in a band making happy, stilted music. The only people who really seem weird to me are people who think they're normal. People who think it's possible to be normal just by doing the same things that most people do. Is there a most people? I don't know. Television makes it seem like there is, but I think that might just be television,

I think the music business will eventually crush me, but I [smiles] ... I'm ready.

Because God only knows why people like what they like and don't like something else.

Why would you want any other, when you're a world within a world?

I don't really think of time off as writing blocks. I think that's a western notion of demonizing inactivity. When your imagination decides it needs to take a nap. maybe that's what it needs to do.

He made his life a lie so he might never have to know anyone.

I truly hope the future will bring me something to feel nostalgic about, because there's really nothing much so far I can remember fondly.