Oneohtrix Point Never Quotes

I never have used any other artist as a model for a sound or a song. It always has to come from an emotion, and capturing the essence of that emotion in a song.

I try to create songs that are really massive and intense, but at the same time remaining honest and raw.

That's what rock music is, I think - constantly searching for authenticity, and being as honest as possible.

I know this sounds phony, but I don't start out on a project going, 'I'm going to make an emotional work,' you know what I mean? You try to tell the story directly and honestly and with passion.

If it makes you cry, it goes in the show.

People in day-to-day life tend to skim the surface of things and be polite and careful, and that's not the language I speak. I like talking about feelings, fears and memories, anguish and joy, and I find it in music.

In my songs, I try to look through someone else's eyes, and I want to give the audience a feeling more than a message.

I've done bits of writing for other people but when I'm writing music as Years & Years, I'm using my life and my stories and my experiences. I want it to be authentic and real but also to work as a pop song - I never want to just put in a cheesy line.

I'm a songwriter; it's in my nature to express things openly.

Emotional sounds don't lie.

Being comedic is a skill, because there is a fine line where the context is important. And being dramatic is just being honest and real in that moment.

I don't feel I'm angry. I feel as though I'm describing something true. If I had stabbed my husband, I could understand being called "angry." If I had an affair with my husband's best friend and written about that experience, I could see the anger. But I'm not doing that.

You know what, I just write what I feel.

In interviews, on the set, talking to people, I'll just start talking about my parents' divorce, and go on and on. My mom's always like, 'You don't have to be that honest. You have to be more fake.' You see some of these actors, they have a permanent smile on their face. How can they do that? It really fascinates me.

I was demanding of myself a deeper and greater honesty, more and more revelation in my work in order to give it back to the people where it goes into their lives and nourishes them and changes their direction and makes light bulbs go off in their head and makes them feel. And it isn't vague, it strikes against the very nerves of their life and in order to do that you have to strike against the very nerves of your own.

That is what is wrong with cold people. Not that they have ice in their souls - we all have a bit of that - but that they insist every word and deed mirror that ice. They never learn the beauty or value of gesture. The emotional necessity. For them, it is all honesty before kindness, truth before art. Love is art, not truth. It's like painting scenery.

Well usually if I'm having a sh***y day, I don't post anything. I don't go out just to tell everyone I'm having a great day, even if I'm not.

If I found out some gal was trying to steal my guy, I'd want to give her a black eye! Instead, I wrote this song. At the time I was writing each song [on this album], you could figure out the frame of mind I was in by listening closely. With every song I've ever recorded, I'm in it. I wouldn't write about it if I wasn't in it.

I better be honest about my feelings, even those involving loneliness, jealousy, and fear.

In a man's letters you know, Madam, his soul lies naked, his letters are only the mirror of his breast, whatever passes within him is shown undisguised in its natural process. Nothing is inverted, nothing distorted, you see systems in their elements, you discover actions in their motives.

Start with the titles, and then build the music that goes with them.

In the past, I've written my songs and then asked friends if they could record the vocals. I didn't want to use my own voice, because other people have much better voices. I was hearing the music with a voice that I don't have. It was a case of pulling whatever resources I had to get the sound I wanted, but that doesn't take anything away from the authorship. They are songs written by me that sound the way I want them to sound. Whether it's my voice or someone else's doesn't make a difference to the music.

All truths, not merely ideas, but truthful faces, truthful pictures or songs, are highly beautiful.

All I can promise myself and everyone else is that this record is a snapshot of thisperiod in my life. It will be that by default.

Say it before you run out of time. Say it before it's too late. Say what you're feeling. Waiting is a mistake.