Benjamin Clementine Quotes

Seeing a play, listening to music - you'll always contextualize it in your own way. Whoever you are, wherever you are; I think that's really important.

I do not think that my films or films by any other filmmaker represent "THE TRUTH." I do not feel the need to categorize my films or anyone else's.

But I'm the only one who can paint the moon, because I'm the only one who knows whether that's right or not.

What a song is is a subjective thing. There's no one real definition for it.

Sometimes I think that there's a fine line between impressionistic and messy.

I think everything's fair in art and how you perceive a character.

People misinterpret my lyrics sometimes too, but I mean, it is what it is.

People who create art would be fools to assume they know exactly what people are going to think of it.

Music has a lot in com­mon with math­e­mat­ics. But in music, two and two need not make four: they add up to what­ever you wish.

On the last album, I didn't want to disturb the melody with too many stories. This time, I wanted to know if I was able to create images with words, with the sound of words.(...) I think that’s a good thing when the one who is listening, is feeling it in a different way that the one who creates. We are all listening with different perspectives.(...) I don’t want to impose my subjectivity to the listener.

It's very difficult to know when you're crossing the boundary. I hate the word boundary because I never think about it when taking a picture. Very often it doesn't mean anything because it depends on who's looking at the picture more than the content of the picture itself.

I despair about the lack of proper respect shown for the piano. If you want it to sound like a traffic jam, go out in the street and forget the piano. That's not a piano sound.

I find that the quest to be perfect and make perfect music is like a black whole. I realize that you can come with the intention to capture a vibe and use a formula, but you have to accept that most of the time its not going to be what you envisioned and you might manifest something better. I think that's been the hardest thing to wrap my head around that most ideas we go for ends up sounding different. I think art in general should be about enjoying the process and the experience. All that matters is if you feel the music and it captures the element your going for.

The filmmaker is not telling you what to think.

Don't worry about how you 'should' draw it. Just draw it the way you see it.

You've got to work with your mistakes until they look intended. Understand?

If, while at the piano, you attempt to form little melodies, that is very well; but if they come into your mind of themselves, when you are not practising, you may be still more pleased; for the internal organ of music is then roused in you. The fingers must do what the head desires; not the contrary.

You can take a picture of New York and one person looking at it will think it looks really depressing, frightening; and someone else will look at it and think of all the fun things you can do in New York. I think songs are kinda like that.

Songwriters can sort of get away with murder. You can throw out crazy theories and not have to back it up with data or graphs or research.

I think artists are going to express things from an emotional point of view, that's their job, to suggest and interpret, and report what they witness. That's their job as artists, you're looking for the rub, where's the rub, you're a storyteller, you're looking for the rub, not necessarily the solutions, or you're not necessarily educated, you're not the winner of a debate contest, a national debate contest, you're not necessarily a person who has a doctorate in anything.

We might adapt for the artist the joke about there being nothing more dangerous than instruments of war in the hands of generals. In the same way, there is nothing more dangerous than justice in the hands of judges, and a paint brush in the hands of a painter! Just think of the danger to society! But today we haven't the heart to expel the painters and poets because we no longer admit to ourselves that there is any danger in keeping them in our midst.

I cannot understand why the poets of our day wax indignant at the vulgarity of their age and complain of having come into the world too early or too late. I believe that every man of intellect can create his own beautiful fable of life.

The individual representation of the object, treated sympathetically or antipathetically, is highly necessary and is an enrichment to the world in form. The elimination of the human relationship causes the vacuum which makes all of us suffer in various degrees - an individual alteration of the details of the object represented is necessary in order to display on the canvas the whole physicals reality.

Objectifying your own novel while writing it never really helps. Instead, I guess while you're writing you need to think: This is the novel I want to write. And when you're done you need to think: This is what the novel I wanted to write feels like and reads like and looks like. Other people might call it sweeping or small, but it's the book you chose.

I play music - I write my own music, but I play music, just background music really, and just let it happen.