You're not famous until my mother has heard of you.
A universal applause is seldom less than two thirds of a scandal
Mainstream success is important - that's probably anathema to an indie publication like Pitchfork, but it's what I believe having experienced it personally.
I think commercial success is really important. It means there are more people listening, and you're affecting the zeitgeist more. If only a hundred people know you exist, it's harder to get your message across.
My goal is to appeal to as many people as I can. I'm not looking to leave country, but I do want to have more international success.
I didn't become a commercially successful artist by design, and actually I think that commercially successful just means, if you analyse it, that a lot of people like you. It's become a dirty word, and I don't necessarily think it needs to be.
The vulgar and common esteem is seldom happy in hitting right; and I am much mistaken if, amongst the writings of my time, the worst are not those which have most gained the popular applause.
I don't want to be a musician's musician. I want to be an everyone's musician.
There is always one or a few artists who appeal to all sort of people, and, of course, I want to be one of those people.
The dispersing and scattering our names into many mouths, we call making them more great.
I don't want to do something that is so inside that only die-hard fans will appreciate.
That's the definition of popularity. Something that literally resonates with many, many people.
I never expected this to catch on in the way it did! Of course similar observations have been made by any number of people, and the distinction is obvious to anyone who thinks about the subject a little.
If you write a song, and you go into a restaurant, and there's a guy with a piano singing and he's playing piano, singing your song, or you hear it at a wedding or at an airport... it's fun!
I have visited many countries, and have been in cities without number, yet never did I enter a town which could not produce ten or twelve little great men; all fancying themselves known to the rest of the world, and complimenting each other upon their extensive reputation.
