Elliott Smith Quotations

I actually don't think that I'm gonna sell a lot of records.

I'm just writing songs about how I feel or about how people I know feel.

Well, I try not to think about the general public since I have no idea what the general public is and I don't think anybody does.

But I was also doing odd jobs around Portland, like spreading gravel and transplanting bamboo trees.

If you play acoustic guitar you're the depressed, sensitive guy.

I can't think of anything off the top of my head that seems more important than something designed to raise money to keep something going that keeps IV drug users from dying.

There's always that argument to make - that you're in better company historically if people don't understand what you're doing.

I didnt know how many people knew who Ferdinand was.

I didn't have a hard time making it. I had a hard time letting it go.

It touches on drug use. I got caught up in that for almost two years.

I watched myself put my paw in the bear trap on that one because there was this clause about leaving members

I mean people just have a way of - y'know they'll review your record in two sentences and put you in this little stupid box that you don't want to be in

It was kind of ridiculous to carry it up to a certain point and then drop the ball or the bomb, like quitting the band right after we had signed to Virgin.

Because God only knows why people like what they like and don't like something else.

I just wanted to move out of Portland to do something.

I was trying to do the same thing that I always do which is make an interesting record

My girlfriend at the time convinced me to send these songs to Cavity Search. When they wanted to put out my record I was totally shocked.

There are lots of things I like about playing in a band, the things I cant do by myself you know.

It's just that a lot of songs that are popular right now, they don't have any meaning

I wondered if I would talk about drug use. But I guess, why hide it?

I didn't think I was gonna be playing on the Oscars or anything.

I don't really like New York better than Portland. It's just a different place.

I rode on a float in one of the parades in Mississippi. It's an experience.

It's a lot easier to tell the truth usually.

The band's filter, but playing live is a lot of fun.

I like home recordings and studio recordings just as much as each other - I don't think one is better - but for this record I wanted to see what I could do in a real studio with real producers.

I think that record gave me a reputation for being a really dark, depressed person but I think I'm just about as happy as all the other people I know.

I was coming off of a lot of psyche meds and other things.

Static in my head,the reflected sound of everything,tried to go to where it led,but it didn't lead to anything.

Items like televisions and computers are considered hazardous waste. If we have to dispose of an item like that now, it isn't just a matter of putting it in the trash. It requires special handling.

I've been here all three nights. I kind of like it down here by the river.

They don't put any pressure on me to do anything in particular and Dreamworks didn't either so this was a really easy record to make.

I may not seem quite right,But i'm not f**ked, not quite.

I'm comfortable apart,It's all written on my chartThat I take what's given to meMost cooperatively.I do what people sayAnd lie in bed all dayAbsolutely horrified,I hope you're satisfied.

I'm comfortable apart, It's all written on my chart That I take what's given to me Most cooperatively. I do what people say And lie in bed all day Absolutely horrified, I hope you're satisfied.

In the event of the band dissolving, any members could be kept to that contract with or without their consent under the same terms.

I don't think that Dreamworks would have signed me expecting to really mess around with whatever it is I do.

If I seem to be reckless with myself,It's the fault of no one.All things have a placeUnder the moon as well as the sun.

If I seem to be reckless with myself, It's the fault of no one. All things have a place Under the moon as well as the sun.

And I'm not trying to write heavy songs.

There's lots of ways people can be dependent, on another person, or drugs...

I've been doing four-track songs by myself since I was like a teenager, where I'd sing in a way that I ... I just didn't think other people would like it, so I didn't play it for them but eventually I got over that, which I'm happy that I did, because it's kind of a drag to be playing a kind of music that you don't really like as much as another kind.

While his history of depression is compatible with suicide... and the location and direction of the stab wounds are consistent with self-infliction, several aspects of the circumstances (as they are known at this time) are atypical of suicide and raise the possibility of homicide.

It was hard to sing like how I wanted to because playing live I had to just be at the top of my lungs all the time, and it made me sound like I had a really bad cold or something.

I don’t think it’s important who I am. I really like playing music, but I don’t really want to be anything in particular.

You can take a picture of New York and one person looking at it will think it looks really depressing, frightening; and someone else will look at it and think of all the fun things you can do in New York. I think songs are kinda like that.

So if somebody writes a song that appears to have some meaning then everybody thinks that it's a really heavy song.

Nothing's gonna drag me down to a death that's not worth cheating.

I want to keep making records as long as I can and that's the beginning and end of my concern about selling records.

The devil's script sells you the heart of a blackbird.

I see you're leaving me and taking up with the enemy, the cold comfort of the in-between, a little less than a human being.

I went walking around the city some more, people watching with a cold, blank stare. And I saw your face in everyone, I swear.

Certain songs just feel a way that's hard to put into words and it's not happy and it's also not really sad but I couldn't say what it is

Static in my head, the reflected sound of everything, tried to go to where it led, but it didn't lead to anything.

Burning every bridge that I cross to find some beautiful place to get lost.

Doing battle with themselves that way, every day, all the time and sometimes it sucks, but other times it results in people making sort of a dream comprehensible to someone else.

I'm the wrong kind of person to be really big and famous.

If I seem to be reckless with myself,It's the fault of no one.All things have a placeUnder the moon as well as the sun.

I don't really think of time off as writing blocks. I think that's a western notion of demonizing inactivity. When your imagination decides it needs to take a nap. maybe that's what it needs to do.

A lot of people are kind of depressed. I'm happy some of the time, and some of the time I'm not.

They say that God makes problems just to see what you can stand, before you do as the devil pleases.

I walked out and Jack Nicholson was sitting about six feet away, so I avoided that area and I looked up at the balcony in the back and sang the song.

I think the suggestion that all my songs are personal is insulting because that assumes that I have a bunch of issues that I feel the need to unload on strangers. That is not the case. It also assumes that I just talk about myself the whole time which, again, is not true.

All your secret wishes could right now be coming true.

Fights problems with bigger problems.

He made his life a lie so he might never have to know anyone.

People can be chaos but it's hard to fit it into some creative piece that you made. It's hard.

People think they know all these things about other people, and if you ask them why they think they know that, it'd be hard for them to be convincing.

It's hard to represent chaos, or like an absence of something. It's much easier to represent the presence of something or a situation.

People are so... seem so chaotic internally, but being filtered through some form, like making a record, sort of filters it down into something that can be understood.

You can't get better at things you never play.

I think the music business will eventually crush me, but I [smiles]... I'm ready.

I liked the idea of a self-contained, endless pursuit of perfection. But I have a problem with perfection. I don't think perfection is very artful. But there's something I liked about the image of a skater going in this endless twisted circle that doesn't have any real endpoint. So the object is not to stop or arrive anywhere; it's just to make this thing as beautiful as they can.

I'm happy some of the time, and some of the time I'm not. But like when I see a movie, for example, that I really like, that moves me or whatever, it's usually happy and sad at the same time.

Somewhere where people aren't so mad would be nice, but I don't know if there is anywhere like that.

Everybody gets a tag. If you listen to a Velvet Underground record, you don't think, 'Godfathers of Punk.' You just think, 'This sounds great.' The tags are there in order to help try to sell something by giving it a name that's going to stick in somebody's memory. But it doesn't describe it. So 'depressing' isn't a word I would use to describe my music. But there is some sadness in it -- there has to be, so that the happiness in it will matter.

Music is worth doing just because. It doesn’t have to be justified by some political point of view, and it’s kind of insulting to the music to make it a tool for something else.

I truly hope the future will bring me something to feel nostalgic about, because there's really nothing much so far I can remember fondly.

Haven't laughed this hard in a long time. I better stop now before I start crying. Go off to sleep in the sunshine...I don't want to see the day when its dying.

I got tired of doing battle with people thinking I was a little weird because I wasn't in a band making happy, stilted music. The only people who really seem weird to me are people who think they're normal. People who think it's possible to be normal just by doing the same things that most people do. Is there a most people? I don't know. Television makes it seem like there is, but I think that might just be television,

Everything means nothing to me

Theres a bunch of Elvis Costello records that made all the difference between feeling like a total freak and feeling like ... only a freak. A freak among other freaks

Playing things too safe is the most popular way to fail,