Josh McDermitt Quotes

I'm a bit of a magpie: whatever I see or hear or read feeds into the songs.

The things I see every day inspire my sound and lyrics, like certain people and situations that stick out in my mind. There are also certain musicians I love whose music and styles inspire me.

I have my permanent muses and my muses of the moment.

When I return to the writing process after being away from it for a while, the first part of it always is being honest with myself: What am I into right now? Is it rock bands and guitars, is it noise, is it dance beats and electronics? Is it space, is it clutter?

I'm inspired by many things, from landscapes to textiles. Art and architecture always influence my design process.

When you're a writer, everything that interests you feeds into your work.

My sole inspiration is a telephone call from a director.

My whole life, I've always had to be surrounded by creative things. I find it relaxing to be in touch with creations by other people.

I carry around a black leather Moleskine journal all the time. And I always write ideas down, especially when I'm on set and working with actors like Jeremy Irons and Viola Davis and learning from them.

I learned a lot from the various artists I produced. Either you see them doing something that you do want to do it, or you see them doing something the way you don't want to do it.

I take inspiration from books, movies, television, music - it all goes in the hopper. Depending on the project, I'm drawing from this or that piece of art that has stayed with me. Toni Morrison, George Romero, Sonic Youth - they are all in there.

People always ask what my inspiration is, and it's never something that's easily explained.

I often draw from people in my own experience to base a character on, going back to my days with Mike Leigh.

My music has been inspired by true events in my life.

I don't write about nature, but I'm definitely very inspired by it.

Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic.

I can't say any artist inspired me, because I'm inspired by the things that go on around me.

Usually when I start to work and to prepare the movie, some inspirations, different kind of human beings, it can be someone I know, someone I don't, a girl, a boy. So usually when I start, quite right away, some inspirations come.

I try to see as much dance, theatre and films as I can because all of it feeds me in a way that I need feeding for what I do.

When I say I get inspiration from my real life, I think of my real life as extending about 300 meters radius around me. So what I see in that area is what inspires me.

I get inspiration, a lot of times, from very commonplace things that just strike a chord and develop themselves in the subconscious.

Creativity comes from the part of the brain that is veritable soup of experiences, memories and influences. We really don't like to start questioning exactly where it comes from, in case it stops coming.

I try when I'm writing to fill my head and my ears with all sorts of stuff and then let it settle and filter through. At a certain point it seems like fruitless activity because you're taking a lot of time and not seeming to get anything. And then, slowly, you realize you've actually digested elements and that your thinking is being freed up and the way you build up compositions is changed as a result of what you've been listening to.

Ultimately, it comes down to taste. It comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best things that humans have done and then try to bring those things into what you're doing. Picasso had a saying: good artists copy, great artists steal. And we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas, and I think part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians and poets and artists and zoologists and historians who also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world.

Art comes from everywhere. It's your response to your surroundings.