Billy Howle Quotes

I think I'm always trying to subvert conventions, and sometimes it's more successful than others.

Being an artist is in part an act of rupture.

I don't care about the rules. In fact, if I don't break the rules at least 10 times in every song then I'm not doing my job properly.

I went to grad school because I wanted to learn the rules so I would know how to break them. Breaking the rules is saying, 'I'm breaking in, OK? I'm breaking in your very comfortable little house over here, and I'm going to take a room.'

What people don't realize is that when you start making things outside of the convention of what is normal or good or 'best practices,' you're also shedding some of the baggage that comes with the concept of what a game 'should' be.

Maybe rock 'n' roll isn't music. Maybe people just need to be reminded that the world ain't the way they think it is.

Nobody does animation better than Disney; it's just that some of us wanted out of the box. Burton was one. I was another. We were the mutual complaint society.

I love challenging the status quo.

When I started making movies, I was pretty young, and at the time I felt like there needed to be more confrontation in cinema - or I needed to make something more disruptive - so in the beginning, those movies were me wanting to play with the rules.

Original thought, original artistic expression is by its very nature questioning, irreverent, iconoclastic.

Being vital means knowing the rules and being brave enough to break them.

Every rule should be broken at least one time.

Sometimes the most positive thing you can be in a boring society is absolutely negative.

I've sort of made a reputation by high-stepping my way out of genre. As soon as somebody says, 'He does this,' I'm not standing there anymore.

I don't like playing standards. I like to do my own cutting edge work.

All I really want to do is things I haven't done. 'I'm gonna put a paper bag on my head and be on the cover of 'Billboard,' see what I can get away with - if they'll let me.' And they let me. And I am literally giggling inside for, like, a month that I got away with it.

I'm not trying to obey the rules of radio.

I like money but I love performance art and it goes hand in hand. I'm not the 'Titanic,' I'm 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show.' I'm not a blockbuster, I'm a cult classic. I think my strong but cult-like fanbase expects me to challenge norms.

My parents broke many rules, so I guess thinking 'outside the box' has been slowly but surely developing in my family - one generation to the next.

We do things differently. You don't have to worry about being part of a particular genre. You just go for it.

Any time people are breaking outside the norm and playing something that isn't expected - that feels like punk to me.

Art flouts convention. Convention became convention because it works.

I just wanted to make something in the world and worry about the rest of it later and not get too caught up in rules.

Rebels learn the rules better than the rule-makers do. Rebels learn where the holes are, where the rules can best be breached. Become an expert at the rules. Then break them with creativity and style.

I never learned the rules in the first place. To change the game is at the heart of what Virgin stands for, so the company culture has always been: "Don't sweat it: rules were meant to be broken."