Zooey Deschanel Quotes

Songs are kind of alive, I think; once you finish writing them, that doesn't mean that that's it for the song. It can have its own little life, I think.

The artist is called a creator.

Artists should never look at pictures, but should stutter in a language of their own.

I don't really like over-explaining the songs. Everyone constantly asks what the songs are about, and I think the thing is that the songs definitely all have stories in them; it's just nice to let people decide what they are. I think it's important that people hear it themselves rather than having me annotate it.

Even at the time, I realised this couldn't be right, that this interpretation didn't fit with the rest of the lyrics. But that wasn't an issue with me. The song was about what I said, and I used to listen to it again and again, on my own, whenever I got the chance.

The masterpiece should appear as the flower to the painter - perfect in its bud as in its bloom - with no reason to explain its presence - no mission to fulfill - a joy to the artist, a delusion to the philanthropist - a puzzle to the botanist - an accident of sentiment and alliteration to the literary man.

I long ago learned that you can't expect people to interpret the songs in the way they had meant for you, as the writer.

By artist I mean of course everyone who has tried to create something which was not here before him, with no other tools and material than the uncommer-ciable ones of the human spirit.

Often I don't know what the song means until it's finished. Sometimes months later. I don't think that's bad. It implies that I don't know what I'm doing but-I think if you're able to follow your instincts, then that's knowing what you're doing.

Does it mean this, does it mean that, that's all anybody wants to know. I'd say what any decent poet would say if anyone dared ask him to analyze his work: if you see it, darling, then it's there!

When critics disagree the artist is in accord with himself.

Where does beauty begin? Where does it end? Where it ends is where the artist begins.

The longer I've been writing scripts, the more I find that you have to give the artist more leeway or else you'll just be disappointed. You can't force them to draw every image that's in your head. Since I'm a horrific artist, I wouldn't want them to anyway. So I definitely give them a lot more leeway now than I did at the beginning.

I think the suggestion that all my songs are personal is insulting because that assumes that I have a bunch of issues that I feel the need to unload on strangers. That is not the case. It also assumes that I just talk about myself the whole time which, again, is not true.

Sometimes you write a song in a certain era and it's got a certain kind of significance.

Every song has a different genesis, or feeling. Usually the lyrics, I don't really know what it's all about, I just kinda do it. I mean, there's a combination of, like you're saying, that kind of lyrics about commitment or vaguely relationship lyrics mixed with jokey 90s Beck-style non-sequiturs and stuff.

When you're an artist you're speaking about life, you're talking about your experience here on the planet. So essentially, that's what I do when I'm writing songs.

When an artist explains what he is doing, he usually has to do one of two things: either scrap what he has explained, or make his work fit in with the explanation.

The artist is the opposite of the politically minded individual, the opposite of the reformer, the opposite of the idealist. The artist does not tinker with the universe, he recreates it out of his own experience and understanding of life.

A working artist is a playing artist.

It's cool that you hear something, but what did you feel and what was your tactile and kinesthetic response to it? Those songs and creative sessions mean the most.

Becoming a fashion designer is agreeing with the fact that what you experience or what you see as free is also connected to a system. Does that mean giving up your freedom? I still don't know the answer. There's a very different kind of psychology going on in the fashion scene than in art.

Strokes carry a message whether you will it or not. The stroke is just like the artist at the time he makes it. All the certainties, all the uncertainties, all the bigness of his spirit and the littlenesses are in it.

The skills of the modern artist are the opposite of those of the craftsman: instead of acquiring techniques for producing classes of objects, the artist today perfects the means suited to his particular work.

I talk about things in music that I would never talk about with my best friends, which I think seems like a weird thing, but my justification in my head as to why it's okay is because it's cryptic enough and there's enough meat around it to make it all okay and no one can really prove what any of the songs mean.