Reeve Carney Quotes

It's very important to me that every person takes away their own meaning from a song, and it's why I don't always love spelling out what a song is about for somebody.

Once they're on paper, they're gone. I like to do as much with the words, as far as image goes, so that it's really left open for a lot of things, even though I remember a specific impression of something I had at the time. I can't say a song is about this or that; in fact, I wouldn't even want to. I just prefer to have people live it anyway they want. Because it's theirs after that. There's nothing I can do about it anymore

I think in some ways, it can do a listener a disservice to explain a song. I think I'd rather leave a little room for people to put themselves in it.

Artists are like messengers. A song is authored by you, but its interpretation is owned by other people. And you have no control over that.

I don't think you can approach any piece of art with boundaries or rules. I think respect is a very important thing, but I also think what we discover along the way is really important.

I try to avoid describing one interpretation of my books. Of course I have an opinion. I have things I want to say, but I don't ever want to limit anybody, to have them say, 'Oh, he said this, so that's what it's about.' I'm happy people bring their own stuff to it.

Art is more engaging that propaganda.

Art is about play and about transcendent meanings, not reducible to politics.

It's better for the listener to interpret their own meanings to the music.

I always hate explaining away songs, because for me they mean something, and for other people, they'll mean something absolutely different.

It's very strange when people get so focused on what a song means, what actual events inspired a song. That gets people really excited for some reason... But that's what's great about music - however people interpret it, whatever they see, is what I want to be there for them.

If you judge everything by how photographically real it looks, then you're missing out on a lot of what art is about and what communication is. There are ambiguities in life, and that should be reflected in art, cinema, and storytelling, I think.

People relate to songs so differently. No matter what it's about in reality, people create their own meaning behind it and connect with it on their own terms.

I personally feel like certain topics and certain issues aren't really being conveyed the right way in music nowadays. It's all very direct and to the point without leaving anything to the imagination.

You can only write your own vision.

I prefer to read into other people's songs what I want to hear in them.

A lot of my music has ambiguity and room for people to interpret.

The statue is then beautiful when it begins to be incomprehensible, when it is passing out of criticism, and can no longer be defined by compass and measuring-wand, but demands an active imagination to go with it, and to say what it is in the act of doing.

I don't expect everyone to get something deep out of it. Some people can just listen to the music, or get their aggressions out, but I think with any great painting or movie, album or whatever it is, it's better if people can take what they need from it. That they're not forced to get some particular message.

Art... does not take kindly to facts, is helpless to grapple with theories, and is killed outright by a sermon.

Being a creative person. It's so much more rewarding when you find things on your own, to live whatever the writers are writing or to display what the director is looking for. You are the thing that everybody uses to get the story out.

If I knew what the meanings of my books were, I wouldn't have bothered to write them.

What is great about art and artists is that we get to ask the questions, even though we may never know the answers.

What you do with it and things like that, but I basically chose this after I read it because I thought it was different and funny and unique and dark - things that I like to do.

A lot of the songs on '2' are pretty personal, but even if I'm writing about something like that, I still tend to keep it pretty simple and open-ended. I like the idea of people listening to my album and it meaning something to me but maybe meaning something else to them.