Johann Johannsson Quotes

I try to put the same spirit into that that I put into any other music endeavor I'm involved in.

Every album is like starting our career over again. We don't get blase, we don't get lazy.

When you find something where you can give people a message and still make it an exciting movie, you get very, very excited about something. You probably even work harder than you normally do.

I view every film as a commitment to undertake a long journey.

The painter's obsession with his subject is all that he needs to drive him to work.

With 'Brick,' I wrote the script when I was 23 and didn't make the movie until I was 30.

One's art goes as far and as deep as one's love goes.

As I create art, it is like a love affair. My days go by loving what I do.

The thing is that when you make a film, it is such an intense experience. It's like being married.

You make yourself do the physical aspects for a Christopher Nolan film!

It's such a commitment, making a film, you're really dedicated, it's your life, that's all you do for that period of your life.

I had more trouble than I had a sense of utility or satisfaction. But it served to occupy me and to keep me occupied in a field that I love - which was cinema - while I was waiting to realize the film that I wanted to do, which was Once Upon a Time in America, which took ten years of thinking and working to realize.

All great artists and thinkers are great workers.

The moment that you start to read a script, you're watching the movie in your mind, and that's the one moment that you have. Then, you go off to make the movie and you become so lost in it.

I have disciplined myself when I'm working. When I discovered art, I realized that one could keep that search going within creation. But I also realize that in order to create the art, you have to stay, you can't go too far.

Whoever wishes to devote himself to painting should begin by cutting out his own tongue

Movies are always in a state of locomotion. You start with a general idea of how it should feel and then you find you've got a runaway train. You have to race to catch up: the movie is telling you what it wants to become, and when that happens there's no greater feeling.

Most of the people that I've worked with when shooting films that I really respect, there is a point which you do become obsessed in a good way. And because it's a collaborative medium, you're not by yourself in a room tearing your hair out, you're in a room with a bunch of people. And we're all tearing our hairs out, or trying to get something right, or caring deeply about something. But that's fun.

One day work is hard, and another day it is easy; but if I had waited for inspiration I am afraid I should have done nothing. The miner does not sit at the top of the shaft waiting for the coal to come bubbling up to the surface. One must go deep down, and work out every vein carefully.

Making movie you just think, well, you know what you're gonna do, and you just when it comes down to the very specifics of it, you kind of have to rely on your mode of panic, and how well your imagination and creativity and all that works when you're in that moment. And you know, frankly, I never worried about that. I never worried that as we moved into the very specifics of it.

When working on and writing a film, I'm often more of a sponge than other times, aware of what's going on around me.

You are desperate to communicate, to edify or entertain, to preserve moments of grace or joy or transcendence, to make real or imagined events come alive. But you cannot will this to happen. It is a matter of persistence and faith and hard work. So you might as well just go ahead and get started.

My hope is to continue to make new music and go with the flow. I think I'll always be creative. I want to keep making good music, put myself into positions where I need to rise to the occasion of playing in front of an audience, and continually get better at what I'm doing.

Writing is mainly perspiration, not inspiration.

Being an artist is celebrating life.