Erik Hassle Quotes

I found that dance, music, and literature is how I made sense of the world... it pushed me to think of things bigger than life's daily routines... to think beyond what is immediate or convenient.

I think that's one of the greatest gifts you get if you're successful at something like music or film or photography - any of the arts - you can sit there and think. It's so much fun to sit there and think and wonder about the world and the universe.

Music, life, a lot of the things that we go through in the world, a lot of questions that we have about the world inspires me.

I don't know which was the first love - music or fashion.

I think I'm very easily inspired. People, wildlife, nature, music, art. I think that I'm lucky that I have this great sense of wonderment about life in general.

There’s a real question as to what beauty is and why it’s important to us. Many pseudo-philosophers try to answer these questions and tell us they’re not really answerable. I draw on art and literature, and music in particular, because music is a wonderful example of something that’s in this world but not of this world. Great works of music speak to us from another realm even though they speak to us in ordinary physical sounds.

Joy is a part of my process. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that poetry, as a practice, necessitates a sense of joy. It's exhilarating to come into contact with the things we write into being. And a real sense of play and abandon – even when we are relying on hard-won technique, and even when the aim is deadly serious. How often do we get the excuse to stop, think, and then stop thinking altogether and try to listen to what sits behind our outside of our thoughts? Poets are lucky.

I don't think there's really any difference between art - or writing, or music - and magic. And I particularly draw the link between magic and writing. I think that they are profoundly connected.

I think my favorite medium is music, with my main tools being my voice and a guitar. But I do find every other medium extremely fulfilling and useful in helping everything I do. Sometimes I need to make a song just for a comic. All of the art and mediums are connected for me.

It reset and mended my freshly damaged and distorted view of life, and made me recognize that this thing we call music, this primal expression that we reshape and refine and define ourselves with, is the gift I was given. The ability to communicate what others feel but cannot fully express, the passing down and around of songs and stories, from Pete Townshend to Joey Ramone to me, to the audiences who take the time and effort to support our work and give us a way to support ourselves -- I'm thinking this is what I am supposed to be doing.

You only do exercises in art school. That's not the real thing. A little bit tells you so much. You have to find your own self. And you don't know what you are! But that's what you have to search for.

Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.

Don't think about making art.

The real world is where I get to educate and entertain myself. I go and touch the real world and touch real people. That's my way into movies.

I think about art a lot only in two contexts. One is narrative... The other thing that I'm interested in, which is tangential, but not unrelated... All art to me is about problem solving.

I think that other people covering my work is really exciting... Im really open to that kind of thing because I think interpretation is an art form.

I think all of my songs are either based on personal experience or will be based on personal experience, because I do write a lot of songs prophetically.

When I'm cynical, I seek out bands that are fully participating and trying to push something forward. Or I can just start playing music again - which is happening with a new project. But I think it's always a challenge to overcome cynicism and not get bogged down by a sense of nostalgia. That can be such a stifling feeling.

Great art allows you to transcend your mortal frame and to reach for the stars. I think great science does the same thing.

The secret to life is to put yourself in the right lighting. For some, it's a Broadway spotlight; for others, a lamplit desk. Use your natural powers -- of persistence, concentration, and insight -- to do work you love and work that matters. Solve problems. make art, think deeply.

The life that I live and the experiences that I have always affect what comes out of me creatively. I think that's what makes music real.

Don't worry if people think you're good. Make this your experience. And find out what makes you unique as an artist. You don't get the opportunity to do that as much in the real world.

I don't think music is done by any means. I would love to do it again but it's finding the right thing.

That impulse I think is a form of love. Poetry is something that comes to you, rather than your having to work out its form beforehand.

I don't necessarily do anything just for the money. I do it for the passion and I do it for the love, because I'm still hungry. So if I want to do music, it's not necessarily motivated because of monetary value. It's more about the passion and the love, and I think that's where music should come from, the heart, not necessarily just to cash a check.