John Cameron Mitchell Quotes

I really don't believe in the word 'selling out.'

The song 'Bite the Thong' in particular, with Damon Albarn, really encapsulates the whole dilemma of, 'Hmm, should I stay on the underground when everybody else is selling out?' Nowadays, you can just do it - have your name-brand clothes, do songs with rock n' rollers - and it's not considered selling out.

It's not selling out, it is called making lots of money.

There are two kinds of artists left: those who endorse Pepsi and those who simply won't.

I've got an overly developed sense of what selling out is, and I of course worry about it too much.

You wouldn't want to be called a sell-out by selling a product. Selling out was frowned on, whereas now you can major in it at business school.

I absolutely loathe the idea of doing a fragrance simply as a moneymaker. Personal brand to make money? Vomit.

I mean, anything that money can be made off will never be a problem to make, no matter what it is.

If you want to capitulate to what commercial needs are, you can always be commercially valuable, but I'm not interested in being that.

I never bought the commercial thing, at any stage of the game.

Sometimes when things you love get really commercial, you end up feeling betrayed by it.

The whole 'sell out' word to me is such a tired, tired word.

In America, even revolutions need a commercial sponsor.

This is the western world; if somebody can make a buck, they're going to try to do it.

Obviously, I would like to play to bigger audiences and have a bit more success, but not if I have to commercialize.

Everyone's life is for sale in America.

I don't like ads. I don't like selling things. That's not me.

The challenge artists face today is whether to be an underground, unheard genius, or to dilute their art for the marketplace.

People like to say their songs are like children, but you gotta get those kids out there so they can make some money and pay the rent.

In trying to cross over to the mainstream, some people stopped writing what they witnessed.

I am uneasy about having scientific exploration depend on profit-making companies.

Capitalism is a set of rituals.

There are so many movies people make just to make money.

Capitalism does not require us to hold a particular set of cognitive beliefs; it only requires that we act as if certain beliefs (about money, commodities etc) are true. The rituals are the beliefs, beliefs which, at the level of subjective self-description, may well be disavowed.

We're just nerds that play music. Because we get played on the radio and have a Vitaminwater ad with Aaron Paul dancing on a treadmill, people are going to say we sold out. I don't write music for that. I write music for me.