Ben Gibbard Quotes

The first song that I wrote that I was proud of was probably 'Hunter' from the first record. But I listen that now and I don't know. I mean, it's got a good hook, but still. I'm proud of it. I'm as proud as I can be of all the ideas, but I think 'Party' showed a maturity that I don't think I had on 'Aldous Harding.'

One of the greatest things about being an artist is, as you get older, if you keep working hard in relationship to what you want the world to be and how you want it to become, there is a history of interesting growth that resonates with different moments in your life.

The Richard Ashcroft of 1992 would have struggled to imagine the path my life has taken - he would be amazed at the changes in my song writing.

As an artist, you want to have an experience. What you need to experience changes over the course of your life because your life changes.

I decided it was time to pay tribute to my own songs, to give them the opportunity to mature and be adult.

Beyond just writing about falling in love and out of love and wanting to do certain things and going out and partying and all the things that I grew up writing about, I want to write about deeper things.

I've felt emotions onstage that I never felt before; it has strengthened me as a person and as an artist.

I guess whatever maturity is there may be there because I've been keeping a journal forever. In high school my friends would make fun of me - you're doing your man diary again. So I was always trying to translate experience into words.

Recently I read the stories I wrote in my early 20s, to put in a volume. And here is this brittle young woman, writing about marriage as, not the worst thing, but the most boring thing that could happen to a person. Now I think I was wrong. I like to be proven wrong.

I've done a lot of growing up since the age of 16 and I really wanted that to be reflected in my music.

Acting for me is finding those things that, finding the strings of humanity that tie us all together. And you only find that by living life and loving and breaking up.

I think I'm also more open to other writers being present and listening to other opinions, whereas before I was going through my angsty teen years while making records.

You're seeing me develop, not only as a filmmaker if you've seen my earlier films, but you're seeing me kind of learn how to be a human, how my philosophy has evolved.

I felt that with 'In A Perfect World' I was still kind of finding myself - not just as a musician, but also in love and in life.

When you're in your early 20s, you go ahead and do everything. And it's very hard to judge yourself.

I am very ambitious and have set goals for myself. I really don't keep a tab on what my contemporaries are doing. I want to push myself as an actress and don't want to get into the rat race. With every film, I want to grow as a person and an actress. The character I play needs to change me in real life.

I try to say something about the human condition whenever I can when I'm lucky.

I don't think much of anything I wrote before the age of 30.

I always thought of myself as a later bloomer, so I like some of my work more later than earlier.

Writing music on your own makes you think a lot about your life. Who are you? Would you change anything about yourself? This is where it comes from.

Every record I do is a learning process for how I want to do the next one.

I'm not so sure I 'like' to watch myself on film, but I do find it necessary in order to continually be a better artist.

I am very self-critical, but that's a good thing because it keeps me growing as a human being and as a musician.

I don't watch my own past films: when I watch them, I find they don't work very well, because I have changed. If I continue to make films, in fact, it is because I always want to repair my films. My inner rhythm has changed; I have changed. I have changed my way to film.

The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality.