Curt Smith Quotes

Editing yourself is like an irksome coin toss. You've got to strip yourself of super ego and operate from the id. Maybe I've got my Freud mixed up. It's just hard to trade a beauty shot for the performance with truth and a brightly lit zit.

I often wrangle with myself as an actor, and wrestle with the process. In striving for authenticity I often have the feeling I am falling short.

I think I sound like a fella who's always making a plea through his music. Sort of a plea of sincerity.

When I try to be perfect, it makes me not have fun.

The only reason I figured out I didn't like my old records to listen was I could hear how nervous I was and how uncomfortable I was. And who would want to sit around and listen to yourself being uncomfortable?

I can't make a perfect record. When I try to, I bleed all the feeling out of it.

I'm not very pious about anything, fortunately, but I'm skewering myself first. I'm skewering things that I care about and things that are important to me and then just my own foibles.

I found being a teenager quite difficult, actually. I put a lot of pressure on myself, and now, looking back at it, I really wish that I had relaxed and just enjoyed it more.

All work is a process of failure. Every single thing I write, I look at it and go, 'Do better. That's not good enough. Do better.' And so, that keeps me up at night.

I always am astounded at how willing Steve was to share all about himself. And sometimes he got criticized for it. But he was so open and yet so private about some things.

My restlessness leaves my mind racing as I try to wind down at the end of mandatory recovery day. It keeps me tossing after poor performances. And if I played well, well... playing well makes me itch to play better; there is always room for improvement.

People can relate more to being honest about your problems, your insecurities, and the things that you find wrong with yourself. Because that's how we really are.

All one's work might have been better done; but this is a sort of reflection a worker must put aside courageously if he doesn't mean every one of his conceptions to remain forever a private vision, an evanescent reverie.

I would just imagine there's a criticism for just about everything, if you want to take something down. No one's invincible. The Jicks are a work in progress and we don't think everything we do is the bee's knees or something, we're just trying our best to get turned on by what we're doing.

The artistic temperament is a disease that affects amateurs. Artists of a large and wholesome vitality get rid of their art easily, as they breathe easily or perspire easily. But in artists of less force, the thing becomes a pressure, and produces a definite pain, which is called the artistic temperament.

You know how you're always trying to get things to come out perfect in art because it's real difficult in life

As if no one had ever tried before, try to say what you see and feel and love and lose.

Know yourself and go in swinging, if it hurts when you hit, it might be real, too.

I had wanted to say that my song was far too painful to sing.

The reason I stopped modeling was because I was not pleased with trying to portray something that is impossible to reach. Even when I do photo shoots now for films, I am just not interested in trying to look my best all the time anymore. That pursuit of an impossible perfection seems ridiculous to me now. I would rather show my vulnerabilities or my doubts than try to be something that no one is.

I have no pride about anything I have done. It's just not the way I think about things. I do the work, always, as hard as I can, to the point of pain, injury, exhaustion, if that is what it takes. Once I am done, I move on.

I've spent so long on some paintings that I no longer know what to think of them, and I am definitely getting harder to please; nothing satisfies me.

When we relax about imperfection, we no longer lose our life moments in the pursuit of being different and in the fear of what is wrong.

Please may this not be a game. Please may this not be a game. Because if it’s a game, I know I’m going to lose.

Perfection is not very communicative