Greg Graffin Quotes

Many artists use their own lives as a kind of case study to examine what it's like to be human.

Many artists and scholars have pointed out that ultimately art depends on human nature.

Art is a reflection of everything that impacts your life.

I don't even know if I always entirely get what I'm trying to say right away with lyrics. I like a lot of things that are more subtext. I grew up mishearing lyrics my whole life, but somehow there's so much more, too, that's implied in vocal delivery and the music itself and the gestural quality of it.

I think music is the most phenomenal platform for intellectual thought.

I love the art form of songwriting. I get to carry a lot of vibes to a lot of people. My songs are all about the human condition, and people will be able to find themselves in my songs.

I just try to write songs that people are going to have a dialogue about.

Scientific reality is the modern human condition, and you can see that in the symbolic nature of my work.

Pretty much at all times music motivates me. How can I say this without sounding in any way proud of myself? Obviously I've always written songs that are critical of our government, and talk about our times. Hopefully you attempt to be timeless while doing it.

Creativity and artistic endeavors have a mission that goes far beyond just making music for the sake of music.

It's fun having songs about parties and gigolos, but I really wanted to use my music as a form of art. Art is supposed to spark conversation and make people think, and I wanted to do that with this song.

Stories in which the destruction of society occurs are explorations of social fears and issues that filmmakers, novelists, playwrights, painters have been examining for a long time.

I have so much music inside me I'm just trying to stay afloat. I don't tend to write for a particular band - you have to just write the songs and then let God into the room and let the music tell you what to do.

I wish that I'd written John Lennon's 'Imagine.'

It's hard for me to always explain my songs, and people always expect a meaning and to know what it's about. Sometimes when I write these songs I'm feeling a particular emotion, so to then come back and explain what I was feeling or put it into words is quite difficult.

Like all art, nonfiction film should invite, seduce, or force us to confront the most difficult, frightening or mysterious aspects of what it means to be human.

It's true that I can write a song and not really be sure what the meaning of it is.

Drawing the kind of comics that I do takes so long that to specifically address something as transitory as a political matter in it would be about as effective as composing a symphony with hopes that it would depose a despot. On top of that, I personally don't think that my version of art is the best way to deal with political issues at all, or, more specifically, the place to make a point. Not that art can't, but it's the rare art that still creates something lasting if its main aim was purely to change a particular unfair social structure.

Human nature provides the lyrics, and we novelists just compose the music.

When you draw something it lives and when you photograph it it dies

I just like writing lyrics. I find a little satisfaction in performing live, making records. But primarily, I just try to write every day.

My job is to write songs that have emotional meaning to me.

If I was an artist, and I was in the studio, then whatever I was doing in the studio must be art.

Morrissey writes wonderful song titles, but sadly he often forgets to write the song.

Songwriting requires some sort of ceremony to even get the process started, and it can be somewhat arbitrary.