Grimes Quotes

We all need to have a creative outlet - a window, a space - so we don't lose track of ourselves.

For me, making a movie is kind of like vomiting. Not that film is like vomit, but more like this mass of ideas and thoughts that you have and just have to put them out there. It's not even about making perfect sense - it's more about making perfect nonsense. I don't do too much soul-searching or self-analysis. I just enjoy making things.

When I was young, there was never any space for me to get attention of my own that wasn't negative. Art, and the practice of making art, was the only space that was mine alone, where I could be anyone and do anything, where just by using my head and my hands I could cry, or laugh, or get pissed off.

I think the line is where you're in the studio, you're creating. That belongs to you as an artist. Nothing should taint that. I shouldn't be thinking about what the fans want, I shouldn't be thinking about what the radio wants, what the label wants, what your manager wants, a song for the chicks, a song for the street.

Painting puts me into an alpha state. It's a private event. I make all the decisions in the process and never have to deal with the outside world.

I've never let producers tell me what to do. Even when I was making television, I always did what I wanted to do, and if I couldn't, I didn't do it. It was a freedom that, these days, young directors starting out don't have.

When I write, I don't have any expectation of what kind of song it will become or who it might reach.

I was scared to do anything in the studio because it felt so claustrophobic. I wanted to be somewhere where things could happen and the subject wasn't just looking back at you.

What art offers is space - a certain breathing room for the spirit.

I trust my hand. If I go into a space with a roll of paper, I can make a work, some kind of work, and feel pretty satisfied.

Writing is a form of licensed madness.

It's actually very freeing to be given permission as an artist to let that ride and to really let it ride, to actually experience it and bring it out of you. It's been uncomfortable and it's freeing at the same time.

You cannot just be working in a vast, air-conditioned loft space and think you are going to make a decent painting. Francis Bacon had a special studio built, and he felt completely emasculated in there. I have to be somewhere comfortable.

I draw what I feel, which is no more than doing my job.

I make movies just as painters paint: I work where I can.

The artist writes, paints, sings or dances the burden of some idea or feeling off his mind.

The greatness of being an artist is the kind of ridiculous guffaw you can have at one's own misery. 'That was miserable! Now how can I write about it?'

You have to have the time to feel sorry for yourself in order to be a good abstract expressionist.

I have never had a studio, and I do not understand shutting oneself up in a room. To draw, yes; to paint, no.

Louis C.K. was able to make it happen. His producers don't bug him. He's able to go into his cave and write exactly what he wants to write, and there are no decisions made by committee, and you have a singular voice, and everyone's like, 'Oh my God! We love this.'

Panic! at the Disco, for me, has been an outlet to do whatever. I never felt like there were any rules. It was always carte blanche. I could do whatever I wanted. There were no rules set yet for the band. It just felt right.

The thing about the creative process is it's so chaotic.

I quietly work with my computer on the tour bus, and then I wait to make my more natural rhythms when I get home.

Art is fluid, and it travels. You have to let music take you where it wants to take you. You can't necessarily be the controller.

I feel that I am much freer if I'm on my own, but I'm sure that there are a lot of painters who would perhaps be even more inventive if they had people round them... I find that if I am on my own I can allow the paint to dictate to me. So the images that I'm putting down on the canvas dictate the thing to me and it gradually builds up and comes along.