Ben Gibbard Quotes

I can't please everybody and I don't try to. If I can please myself that's enough. For the rest, I just hope for the best.

I don't want to know what they think of me - there's always going to be someone who won't like it and that'll just upset me. So, if I'm happy with it, it just matters if I've done my little vision.

The person who seeks all their applause from outside has their happiness in another's keeping .

I'm not running around looking for love and validation.

I just work - however people feel about it, I mean, at the end of the day, if I'm waiting for accolades, I could be waiting all my life, but I don't need that stuff to validate me. I just do what makes me happy.

I work as an artist, and I think the audience of one, which is the self, and I have to satisfy myself as an artist. So I always say that I write for the same people that Picasso painted for. I think he painted for himself.

You cannot please everyone, and I think that what's important, ultimately, is to make sure you please yourself. If you start trying to please other people, you'll just go around in circles.

What Do You Care What Other People Think?

When you live for others' opinions, you are dead. I don't want to live thinking about how I'll be remembered.

A lot of people got something to prove. If I had something to prove, I proved it already, so why do I have to go showboat? Like, I don't say I got the hottest song in the world. And, personally, I think otherwise.

They're just opinions, what people say about you. None of that stuff's true. The only thing that matters is what you think of yourself.

I think it's harder to make a classic now, not because of what people say, but because artists now are so concerned with what people say.

The ultimate definition of success is: you could lose everything that you have and truly be okay with it. Your happiness isn't based on external factors.

Work has enhanced and certainly supported my feelings toward myself, because it's been a reflection of goals I've set. But if you're not happy with yourself on the inside, then what does it matter?

I think no matter what you do you can't please everybody. You have to ask yourself, "Did I do what I set out to do?"

It'd be negligent to say that I don't want to be at the top of the charts. Of course I do, it's proof that your song is being heard. But I think it's more about the work for me and being proud of what I'm doing in music than what people think about my music. I want to like my music before you like it. I don't want to sell anything that I don't really like. I don't want to sell myself short just to get to the top of the charts. It doesn't feel that great. Feeling proud of your work feels greater than being at the top of the charts.

I think the thing that people do wrong today is that they pray for external validation.

People can hate on you for doing what it is that makes you happy, but ultimately it has to belong to you. It shouldn't matter what anyone else thinks.

As you care less about what people think of you, you will care more about what others think of themselves.

I've just never cared what people think. It's more if I'm happy and I'm confident and feeling good, that's always been my thing.

A lot of people that I know are bugged with the idea that they have got to have an audience, or they have got to be liked. I think the more that you fall into that trap it makes your own life harder to come to terms with, because an audience appreciation is only going to be periodic at the best of times.

I'm hesitant to judge people. My favorite saying is "you do you." But, hopefully, you don't have to seek external validation from others to feel good about yourself.

If you look to others for fulfillment, you will never be truly fulfilled.

I don't think it matters what the frequency is of me writing or directing a movie. It doesn't really matter to anybody else. I'm just trying to put good things out there.