Matthew Sweet Quotes

It's important to me to try and expose young people to the things they believe are off-limits to them. I tell them, 'There are no walls, only the ones we put up.' My advice to young people looking at my life is not to follow my footprint but to go out there and make their own.

I want simply to learn about the world and live freely.

I pay for what I call eccentricity and my will to evolve.

I've always related music to those moments when someone turns you loose on something and they haven't told you how to do it.

Find people who think like you and stick with them. Make only music you are passionate about. Work only with people you like and trust. Don't sign anything.

They told me I should be making my own records. So I figured, 'why not?

I was allowed to wander where I could. Here is a case in which you search for your independence and allow something creative to come out of that.

People speculate or think what they want to think, but it's been really fun for me to kind of explore what I want to explore.

I love to be free to explore, research, and evolve.

I was someone who knew what they wanted to do for so long. I was always fascinated by music, always a student of pop.

If you want your children to bring original ideas into the world, you need to let them pursue their passions, not yours.

There is something transformative about the act of finding your own way without a to-do list.

Wherever the wind blows me, I'll go! My eventual goal is to have enough experience to produce something on my own.

Museums and bookstores should feel, I think, like vacant lots - places where the demands on us are our own demands, where the spirit can find exercise in unsupervised play.

I discovered very early that it wasn't quite enough for me to imitate people.

The business has changed so much that they're able - we're able these days in the music industry to be able to control our own destiny.

Writing is not work. In fact, there's nothing better. Writing is something that if the music business went completely away tomorrow - radio stations quit existing and music quit being popular and it was old hat - I would still write songs.

I love working alone. Crave it, in fact. I feel truly alive then.

For me, I want my kids to find their way. If they're interested in something, I want them to try it out.

It's great to go on your own and discover new things just for yourself, to meet new people and all that. If you're all on your own, then there is nobody there to guide you and you have to make all the decisions for yourself. It's quite liberating in a way.

I think what my father appreciated was the science experiment of life. He had these kids, and they had their own experiences. He wanted us to discover the world for ourselves.

By not going to school I learned that the world is a beautiful place and needs to be discovered.

I've been here 21 years, and I literally did walk up and down Music Row trying to break into the business. I felt very free to go into any publishing company.

L.A. is so isolated and unhip in a way; it gives you room to figure out who you are and explore more personal stuff.

I plan on doing a lot more work on my own, and discovering and doing more.