James Murphy Quotes

You know I was curious - I was interested in all kinds of mystery or deeper meanings in the paintings because I myself have not analyzed why they have turned out like this or like that.

With most of the songs and music that I've composed, irrespective of the myriad videos made, I was always careful not to overly define the experience, leaving room for people to internalize things for themselves, making their experience more integral.

So much of art-making is about reducing things to the essentials, so I don't feel particularly crippled by this. I don't want it to look natural because then I would be making a documentary film.

Although my art work was heavily informed by my design work on a formal and visual level, as regards meaning and content the two practices parted ways.

If the audience knew what they wanted then they wouldn't be the audience, they would be the artist.

So many paintings have hidden meanings or need wall texts, but my work is not in that category.

Sometimes I think that there's a fine line between impressionistic and messy.

If I paint something, I don't want to have to explain what it is.

Film is abstract, not definite. It is a dream.

If you judge everything by how photographically real it looks, then you're missing out on a lot of what art is about and what communication is. There are ambiguities in life, and that should be reflected in art, cinema, and storytelling, I think.

Writers are lampposts and critics are dogs. Ask lampposts what they think about dogs. Does the dog hurt the lamppost?

You can't be too concerned with the philosophical meanings of the character and how it will affect everything else.

There's always a message in my music, you just gotta be able to just sit there and be open-minded.

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.

Film is the only art form where we feel we have to title our stuff literally. Musicians don't have to title their songs literally. It can be more about what's conjured up when you think of a word.

I've always tried to avoid music being direct therapy, and I've always found there's a power when you write something that can have its own interpretation - although I'm not being intentionally evasive.

I like leaving a space hollowed out, where as I change I can inject new meaning in the shell of the songs all of the time. Where anyone who listens can hopefully inhabit them in their own way.

I am not interested in representing reality. Actually, I am interested in representing reality, but that doesn't mean a naturalistic approach, which I think is kind of impossible.

What higher art does is to invite us in and allow us to make decisions.

Telling someone about what a symbol means is like telling someone how music should make them feel.

Love is art, not truth. It’s like painting scenery.

I let myself go. I thought little of the houses and trees, but applied colour stripes and spots to the canva... Within me sounded the memory of early evening in Moscow, before my eyes was the strong, colour-saturated scale of the Munich light and atmosphere, which thundered deeply in the shadows.

I just try to find targets I feel something about and express it my way.

Art is a severe business; most serious when employed in grand and sacred objects. The artist stands higher than art, higher than the object. He uses art for his purposes, and deals with the object after his own fashion.

How could we possibly appreciate the Mona Lisa if Leonardo had written at the bottom of the canvas: 'The lady is smiling because she is hiding a secret from her lover.' This would shackle the viewer to reality, and I don't want this to happen to 2001.