Moby Quotes

To me, a critic is someone who gets paid for their opinion, and they're entitled to that opinion but I don't really put a lot of stock into their opinion. I'm going to cut the kind of records and the kind of songs that I like, and the kind of things that I enjoy doing. If critics dig it, that's fine, if they don't, that's fine.

The music is the thing. I am not writing for critics; I don't want to become a personality.

Really I've just gotta be making really great music that I love and not worrying too much about what other people are gonna think about it.

A lot of people are like, "How are you going to re-do it?" I'm not worried about what people are going to say because you know people are gonna be like, "It doesn't sound like this... It sounds like this." I'm just going to make music that I know I'm supposed to make.

I've never not been pleased with one of my albums. I figure because it's spoken word, there will be people who relate to it, and people who don't, so I don't worry about any of that. I've been doing it for over twenty years. I've always written because it was something I had to do, never for the glory.

I'm creating music - it doesn't matter if anyone else likes it.

Essentially, no one can control what other people think of the final outcome. Once it's done, the audience will like it or not, they may even think I'm an idiot. They can also think I'm brilliant or whatever, I can't control that. What I can control is the joy in putting it together, the process of the work itself. I try and create an atmosphere where we're all enjoying the work. That's the only thing you can hold on to, the only true thing.

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.

To be acknowledged outside of my city is amazing to me, because I don't really feel like I did nothing distasteful. I made the music I want to make, and people started to like it.

I don't spend my time perusing message boards to find out what people think about me or if people think my songs are good or if people love that lyric or this or that. I just want to be happy with it myself - and if other people like it, that's great.

I think you have to satisfy yourself first and foremost. There have been records I've been really, really pleased with that haven't connected with people. But I felt good about them. If you're making music, you must want to turn other people on to it, whether you're number one in the charts or number 60. I don't know, that's a commercial thing, but just the fact that other people like you... there's no point in making music, otherwise. Otherwise you might as well make it in your bedroom and leave it there.

Comparing yourself to the people like you, comparing yourself to the people who aren't like you, looking at how many records you've sold, looking at the venue size you're selling out. None of that can even remotely measure how happy you are.

I'm 31 years old and can't complain about the money I make and the smiles I can create on people's faces.

At the end of the day, all you really have is your own sense of your artistic ability and I've always stuck with that my whole life. I guess there is always a bit of relief that I have and real joy of being able to engage other people who are talented, equally or better than you, and you can work with them.

I've always appreciated people like Graham Parker or Loudon Wainwright III, who spend their entire lives writing songs and working their asses off just to have complete artistic freedom. They're just sharing their lives with you through their music. That's the same kind of work that I'm trying to do, in my own weird way.

I don't think my work has to be loved by everyone, and it's loved by enough people that I'm grateful and able to keep going.

I would love to win an Oscar one day. That would be a very wonderful thing. But in the meantime, I really hope that I make films I'm proud of. A lot of people aren't going to like the movies I make, I'm sure. But as long as I'm proud of the movie and I'm not selling out, and I'm doing things that make me happy and make me grow as an actress, I'll be good.

The people who support me are so great! They all say such nice things that make me feel really great. I love it when people compliment me on the way I act, because it is not an easy thing, and there is so much criticism out there.

I'm making music for music's sake, and I have an audience I'm proud of.

I'm a grown-up and I'm a creative person so I should try to give something to that and see what I can make with that. And not sit around listening to people be like, 'You really should be on an HBO show. You'd be great on an Amazon series.' You're like, 'Thank you, okay. I don't have any offers.'

The people I am afraid of are the ones who look for tendentiousness between the lines and are determined to see me as either liberal or conservative. I am neither liberal, nor conservative, nor gradualist, nor monk, nor indifferentist. I would like to be a free artist and nothing else, and I regret God has not given me the strength to be one.

I don't read reviews, and I don't include the press as part of my priorities or as part of the world that has any validity to what's really important to me.

Fear of what other people will think is the single most paralyzing dynamic in business and in life. The best moment of my lifewas the day I realized that I know longer give a damn what anybody thinks. That's enormously liberating and freeing, and it's the only way to live your life and do your business.

I would never write in response to what I believe the public wanted or needed.