El-P Quotes

I make music not to make money but because it's in me.

Why do writers, say, give up a job in economics and decide to write poetry? Or, why do they give up a job in a bank and decide to paint, like Krishan Khanna? They want to convey something.

I feel like every record I've ever made, on some level, is urgent.

Having once found the intensity of art, nothing else that can happen in life can ever again seem as important as the creative process.

Any true musician, true artist, knows that when they're in that point of total artistic creation, whether on stage or in the studio or writing or whatever, that's the closest moment [to creation]. And that's what keeps all these people addicted to getting back to that moment again.

Being an artist is celebrating life.

I love making music. I never stop. I want to keep it moving forward. I like to go into the studio and make hits. It makes me feel good.

I always wonder what drives us as Artists.

I am working here (in Amsterdam) on my last big triptych, which will be a tremendous story, and which gives me a more intense life and exhilaration. My God, life is worth living!

Some writers, of course, simply write, as they feel they are driven to do, by outer/inner inspirations. If, after the work is written and, hopefully, published, others respond -- that is the Champagne. But we, or some of us, don't write for the Champagne. We write because we write.

I just want to try - on a daily basis keep trying - to make music that I really love.

I paint all the time. Each night I wrestle, I paint my face because I am an artist. It's kind of all coming together where I am able to do everything I really love to do and need in my life.

It is not the act of making art that is painful. It is the desire to make something and not acting on it that causes pain....A day when I don't write is less happy. This is not discipline. It is affection, enthusiasm, adventure-any number of other words besides discipline.

If something happened where I couldn't write music anymore, it would kill me. It's not just a job. It's not just a hobby. It's why I get up in the morning.

I'm just excited that I get to put out the music I love versus music just for the sake of it.

I would go visit my mom on Sundays, and my brother was working on stuff. I'd go in there and sing a little melody, then we started working with words and the next thing you know it was just born organically without really trying.

I've always been rapping before I was making money off of it. Before I made a profit, I had always been rapping.

I love creating images, of course, because I'm an artist.

I try to look at the whole thing and say 'yes' to the projects that I cannot stop thinking about. If I read a script and the subject stays with me - then that's when I want to go to work.

You can never tell when an artist really will take up someone's work and work with it happily.

I think that to make something alive, instead of on a page, is an honorable task. And it turns me on.

I just play the music that I love with musicians that I respect, and fortunately, I'm in a position where people are willing to play with me, and perhaps I can do something to help them.

I've always been creating my whole life, you know. I've just had a need to create, whether it was sculpting or writing or directing. It's just ever since I was a kid, I don't know.

If I'm inspired and music inspires me, then I will continue to play it.

My life is in the art that I make, and I'm very happy with it.