John Carpenter Quotes

It's really tough to make a name for yourself without compromising and without fitting yourself into a real specific mold. When I made the choice that I would be involved in every aspect of music and not necessarily make music for radio or MTV, I was saying, 'OK, this is me. You decide who it is.'

I'm certainly not who people think I am. I always do whatever I want to do, and my films are personal to me.

The one thing I will never do is become pigeonholed.

I'm just trying to be myself - make music how I make music.

I feel like the point of being an artist is to have your own voice: to do it the way you would do it and not the way anyone else would do it. If you're a strong enough writer, then that voice is going to come out all the time, and I can't stop it from coming out, no matter what I do.

Everybody struggles with being an oddball. It's tough trying to fit in when you're a kid; then you become an adult and you think, 'I'm just going to be myself and either they accept it or they don't.' But you know what? I like me, and that's the most important thing.

It does not matter how badly you paint so long as you don't paint badly like other people.

I want to be remembered as somebody that tried to respect her integrity as an artist and as a person. And I don't want to be in any box. I don't want to be one thing.

People must insist on the right to say no, to be alone, to stand out from the herd. Creative artists can say all this in their own way and in their own field, by hard, rigorous work.

I don't want ever to be guilty of what my critics claim: doing formula without original elements.

An artist must be a reactionary. He has to stand out against the tenor of the age and not go flopping along.

The records are black boxes for me. Like, if you want to know who I am, my views, my perspective, things I love, things I hate, my convictions, my anthems. I've never let people's opinions affect the way I write.

I'm American. I'm eclectic. I'm going to follow my musical passions. And if people don't like it, and it hurts my legacy, I'm not going to worry about that.

I don't care what people say. My music's, my music.

I'm sure I was a great disappointment to many women because I wasn't Errol Flynn. But I'm me. I think that's got some merit.

If I weren't the way I am, I shouldn't write my symphonies.

I think it's important to have your own individual style and sense of self. It's kind of what I do.

Just trying to be different - when I hear something - I don't like to go trampling on other people's sounds.

When it came to my art, I went my own way and did not follow the trends.

I arrived in Hollywood without having my nose fixed, my teeth capped, or my name changed. That is very gratifying to me.

Like most creative people I don't fit well into boxes.

I may be no better, but at least I am different.

Labels don't mean anything to me. I'm trying to play as passionately as I'm able to. If they want to call that cool, that's fine. Just spell the name right, is the formula.

I like that I'm not typical. I like that I'm called 'no-genre hip-hop.'

I have never wished to cater to the crowd; for what I know they do not approve, and what they approve I do not know.