Daniel Johnston Quotes

I'd never imagined myself in a band. So the fact that I've had such a long career without really naturally pursuing it is really astounding. It's taken me a long time to accept what I do for a living and actually feel like I have anything of value to add to the equation.

I went to art school, and I wanted to be an artist since I was 5. I basically moved to New York to do art, and I just sort of fell into doing music at an early age.

I started out doing the acting, and there was always an interest in music, and then the music just took off.

I had wanted to be a dancer when I was younger. But at some point I figured out I was a better singer.

I actually grew up wanting to be a filmmaker. I wanted to make movies, and music was a detour, almost.

I wanted to be a pianist but it just wasn't my thing. I guess I wanted to stand up rather than sit down.

For English assignments I was constantly coming up with these strange adventure stories... But I actually wanted to be an artist, or maybe work in the comic book industry.

It took me a long time to reach the decision to retire, actually, from the Art Ensemble.

I don't want to just be fully rapping my whole life.

I loved movies. They inspired me more than anything growing up and wanted to do for others what those movies have done for me. I do a lot of other creative stuff but am not very good at it.

I came out to L.A. in '78 to be a musician. I didn't get into comedy until the mid-Eighties.

As I grew older, I actually was prepared to go into fine arts school and do a degree. That was what I was actually settled upon when I was offered a record deal.

If you knew me before Myspace, you'd probably thought I'd have been a scholar teaching philosophy in a university my whole life. If you met me before college, you'd probably have thought I'd be a musician for my entire life.

Singing was my first love and I never even considered it after I started acting, but now I'm bringing it back into my life.

I never wanted to be a performer, that was not one of my goals. I wanted to be a musician and that was that.

But it's funny that now I'm in such a happy situation, I look more objectively at my own past and see what others have seen for a long time and I'm just so glad I've been able to get to this point.

I think when I was about 6 or 7, I would have said I wanted to be an actor and an artist.

Well, the first thing I wanted to be was a carpenter. Then I wanted to be a painter and then a singer. It was when I first saw 'Lawrence of Arabia' that I wanted to be an actor.

It's head and heart. I like to feed both. I always wanted to be an actor. But the cultural-intellectual side of things has always excited me. I wouldn't want to let it go.

I want to find something really wonderful to do next and take my time to search through the dearth of great material, especially for women.

I've really gone into business since I got the 6 string, which was like starting all over.

Sometimes I think the choir gets a little ticked with me because I haven't sung in a long time and I can sing.

When I was 11 years old, I thought, 'All I really wanna be able to do is my own comic book,' and I'm doing it. I don't have any other real ambitions. I have nothing to conquer at all.

I didn't really even think of recording under my own name for a long time. I thought, 'I've got the rest of my life to do that.'

I was certain when I was about 10 years old that I was going to be a special effects artist or a make-up man. I loved that stuff and pursued it for quite some time, actually.