Amaal Mallik Quotes

I can't leave the studio until everything is as it should be. And I can't put a record out unless I am completely happy with it. I never want to be at a signing and hear my album playing and think, 'Oh no, I could have done that top note better.'

If I feel that I'm not able to do my best work - whether that's my own fault or as a result of an editorial situation - then I need to stop doing it. I would rather not do something than do it badly or ineffectively. It's the only way I can live with myself and do right by the fans in the long haul.

I never choose a genre over quality. I never think, 'I want to do that,' and sacrifice the fact it might not be very good.

When I create something, it's got to be special, and it can't just be to throw something out there because I feel like I'm Missy.

I have always believed in quality work.

With my own stuff, I've always held to the belief that it should take as long as it takes until it feels right.

Once I finish something, if I don't feel that it's absolutely fabulous, there's no way I would ever let it be recorded, I wouldn't even present it to a producer.

I don't want to put out something I'm not psyched on just because I finished it. That's the stupidest reason to do something, really. I want it to be up to my standards. I don't want to put out something I wouldn't listen to.

It grieves us to produce work that is not perfect.

I know it sounds odd, but I want to make a Rolex-quality screwdriver.

I wanted this, I wanted to do this, but my work is me, and it has to be right.

I criticize my own work pretty harshly.

There is no room in the world, as you say, for second rate work.

I've never been the type of person to jump up and throw out the album without it being what it's supposed to be.

If I'd been a housemaid I'd have been the best in Australia - I couldn't help it. It's got to be perfection for me.

I'm my own worst critic and I think everyone in the band is a perfectionist.

Commit yourself to quality from day one... it's better to do nothing at all than to do something badly.

An artist cannot do anything slovenly.

We're putting a lot of pressure on ourselves for this second album and so we want to make it as great as we possibly can.

I'm more critical of the films I make than anyone else.

When you're a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you're not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You'll know it's there, so you're going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back.

I will not write a lame follow-up. It could take me 20 years. But I will never turn in a book that I'm not happy with.

Even when the writing seems very frivolous, I'm puritanical. I don't mean my subject matter. It's that I'm almost pathologically incapable of leaving something when I'm not quite happy with it.

I'm a perfectionist, so I can drive myself mad - and other people, too. At the same time, I think that's one of the reasons I'm successful. Because I really care about what I do.

I'll probably never put out another album because I'm a tough critic of my work, and I don't think I could come up to those standards any more.