Tom Junod Quotes

I don't want to be a 'teen star' because so many people don't ever grow out of that.

By turning our culture over to the spectacle of child stars and their growing pains, we simply wind up taking their childishness seriously and ensuring that they don't grow up at all. And neither do we.

Arguably, no artist grows up: If he sheds the perceptions of childhood, he ceases being an artist.

Because I think every child star suffers through this period because you're not the cute and charming child that you were. You start to grow, and they want to keep you little forever.

I think the main reason a lot of child stars don't make it is that it's hard to see someone as cute and then all of a sudden see them as having more depth.

If you live through the initial stage of fame and get past it, and remember thats not who you are. If you live past that, then you have a hope of maybe learning how to spell the word artist.

I went to Goldsmith College of Art in London in the '80s and there I made sculptures, but the objects had nothing to do with how I was thinking. I was making beautifully sanded wooden boxes!

I'd change nothing in my career path. I was never built for being a handsome teenage star. That's just not in my psyche, I think. I would have hated to have grown up famous.

I feel that I am more aware of my artistry.

If you notice, no child star made it big when s/he grew up because the child's image was still fresh in people's memory. They could not digest the fact that the child star had grown into a man.

I don't want to be that artist who's doing the teenage angst thing and draw it out my whole career.

Traffic' was an album that had a significant amount of songs. It was not complete and I felt didn't fully represent me as a person or as the artist I want to be and so when I started the writing process for 'The Autobiography' I was really turning a corner in my life.

I'm grateful that I didn't get thrown into the limelight at 19-years-old.

The older I got, the less pretentious I got in my art tastes and work.

As an artist, you keep learning. You draw out different parts of you.

Being in the spotlight, you know, you tend to kind of forget who you are. And being an artist... it could be a very superficial job. It could be very pretentious as well.

I was 23 when I wrote 'Neighbors,' and I definitely look back at it now and cringe a little bit. I was trying to understand what drama was.

Just growing up and maturing has made my music so much better.

I was a boy that grew up in front of the world on television. Now I'm a man.

It feels really strange when I walk by newsstands and I don't see any magazines with me in it!

I never wanted to be like: 'Oh, just because I'm a singer I can be in films now.'

It's no new narrative to say that when people get out of child stardom, they oftentimes rebel in very serious ways.

Producing has empowered me as an artist in a specific way. It's forced a certain kind of maturity.

I've established a certain voice over my albums. It can be an obstacle, but in the end, I think it's a strength, because I can build upon that voice, which is ultimately very much mine.

I don't think I've grown up easily.