Ben Folds Quotes - Page 2

The less I talk in bars, write emails, express myself in an emotionally lewd way outside of my songwriting, the more I have to do it through my music.

Now that I have found someone, I'm feeling more alone... than I ever have before.

The way I see it, there's only one melody for any song.

Even though I live in America more, I feel like when I go to Adelaide, that's when I get to go home.

In many ways, I've chosen to be plain, almost too plain, too self-effacing. Like, if I record a vocal and I don't like the way it sounds, I would have them turn it up and take the reverb off it to make it as plain as possible.

Why would I want to sound like Joni Mitchell? I've got Joni Mitchell records, and they're great, and I couldn't possibly be that good.

My job is to be some sort of music/lyric psychic, to figure out that that's the right song to not fight the lyric.

What stupid f - king idiot gets married a second time if the first time didn't work out?

My parents told me I must get married. I was seen as a failure if I didn't do it.

The reason I stop playing songs is usually because I get sick of them, and then they find themselves back into the set list at some point.

The nature of honesty is that if someone has information or knows something about you that you don't want heard, then they have power over you.

Next door, there's an old man who lived to his nineties and one day passed away in his sleep. And his wife, she stayed for a couple of days and passed away. I'm sorry, I know that's a strange way to tell you that I know we belong.

With a song, it only takes a couple of minutes to go back to the beginning and try it again to see if it works. The novel freaks me out because, what if you get into the eighth chapter and think, 'Let's go to the top and see if this works again? It's going to take me three weeks.' I'm in awe of that.

I start songs all the time. If I weren't so lazy, I would finish them. It's like when I have a deadline I have to. I always feel very lucky that I am forced to make records at certain times. If I was forced to make 2 records a year, I would write twice as many songs. I can't make myself finish something unless I am forced

If you're afraid they might discover your redneck past, there are a hundred ways to cover your redneck past.

Im really good at writing almost hits.

But I really do have a soft spot for the solo shows. Any musician who writes and sings will tell you that's the center of it, that is it. It's almost like there's something church-like about it and you gotta go back there, if you're a songwriter that sings your material.

I feel like a quote out of context.

If you can't draw a crowd, draw dicks on the wall

Because I write very simply, but inside the simplicity, there's a lot of subtlety. That's what I'm proud of.

I used to do this big rant at the end of some gigs with Ben Folds Five. The band broke into this big heavy metal thing and I started as a joke to scream in a heavy metal falsetto. I found myself saying things like: Feel my pain, I am white, feel my pain.

The press is like any business. Its a group of really intelligent individuals that ends up being one slathering, one-eyed, drooling monster.

It's a tough thing to know that when you're making your album, you're going to end up collaborating with, say, Wal-Mart, on your artwork. That just sucks. And the pressure behind getting the numbers real fast is, to me, dizzying.

Rock and roll is - and should be - a kid's place.

You never know when you put out an album that's unique whether it'll get beat up for it or not.