John Lurie Quotes

I understand that people are afraid. Because I think censorship is about fear. It's just fear being projected onto art.

I can paint pictures, but I cannot rule men.

You know, all kinds of people inspire me.

One thing that success has taught me is censorship.

These censorship people think something is going to promote behavior in people.

It's true that the human body is more vulnerable than the products of the human mind. We need to protect artists and journalists people to allow them to work.

I have no shame in making music that maybe, if you listen to it long enough, you'll realize you've heard this or that part of it before. I'm still very excited by an amazingly written song, so that's really the thing that I work on when I make records with people.

Information, knowledge, is power. If you can control information, you can control people.

When people censor themselves they're just as likely to get rid of the good bits as the bad bits.

I'm sick of remakes, how about something different. That's the thing - people always come to me and are like 'what do you want to remake, we know we can get that greenlight, what do you want to make?' I don't want to remake a g-d damn focking think.

Self-published media are really critical. It's so heartwarming that people are still doing it in this digital age. It's just really moving and exciting. You can't really replace a beautiful little mini-comic. It doesn't translate to the computer, you know? Handmade stuff has really given me hope for humanity.

Some people create with words or with music or with a brush and paints. I like to make something beautiful when I run

I'm going to do whatever it takes to be able to affect people the same way I've been affected by the music I love.

To be surrounded by beautiful things has much influence upon the human creature; to make beautiful things has more.

It has never been easy for me to understand why people work so hard to create something beautiful, but then refuse to share it with anyone, for fear of criticism.

People should be stopped from writing poetry. There's far too much of it. And if they're any good, they'll go ahead anyways.

It amazed me how some people could touch an instrument and create something so beautiful, and when others tried, like me, it just sounded like mangled noise.

The most important thing to me is my work, and reaching people through my work. It's so important to me. It's my passion.

Obscenity is a notable enhancer of life and is suppressed at grave peril to the arts.

ART is domination. It's making people think that for that precise moment in time there is only one way, one voice. Yours.

People in life quote as they please, so we have the right to quote as we please. Therefore I show people quoting, merely making sure that they quote what pleases me

It may be said that artist and censor differ in this wise: that the first is a decent mind in an indecent body and that the second is an indecent mind in a decent body.

You can't change people's minds, we are not God. We can do our best to do what we do, whatever job we have to bring sort of goodness out there. But we can't change people. As an artist what I can do is to communicate!

I think that's great - I just try not to be one of those people. I find the more I think about it, the less free I feel when I write and when I work.

You look on the Internet, and people are transforming themselves on a daily basis, and it's not a superficial thing, it's not a vain thing, and it's not an "I don't like the way I look" thing. It's people truly being creative. It's a way of making your mark and making a statement, and I love that. Beauty is making a statement in whichever way you choose to do so, and I think that's a beautiful thing.