Sufjan Stevens Quotations | Page 2

I am not naturally inclined to history or geography - maybe that's why I like to sing about it, because it helps me remember.

I believe that music is a spiritual language. My everyday self is pretty mundane and boring, but when I'm making music it allows for me to communicate a kind of transcendence that I can't communicate otherwise.

It's hard to reconcile my personal beliefs with an entire institution like the Church or the Republicans. Or with people within those political persuasions who have such different ideologies but confess the same things I confess spiritually.

You know, I don't think my music is important, I don't think it's changing the world, I don't think it's art. I just think it's music. It is what it is.

Audacity is central to everything I do. A lot of times I think my work is about just seeing if I can get away with it.

I remember Detroit feeling really unsafe, feeling scared a lot. Our house was broken into, our car was stolen, we had to get a watchdog, we would get beat up in the street, I had my bike stolen. There was just a lot of real anarchy on the streets and sidewalks.

I think of the saddest thing I can and then add a sick dog to that. If I think of a sick dog from the beginning, I just stop there.

I feel like the Internet needs to be disarmed in some way. There needs to be a philosophical undermining of the Internet. We take it too seriously and too literally. For a reference we go to Wikipedia, which is full of inaccuracies and misinformation. It's kind of beautiful - it's all the product of imagination; it's not reality at all.

We stayed a long, long time, to see you, to meet you, to see you at last.

I think musicians should stay off television generally.