Elliott Smith Quotes

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Everything means nothing to me

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.

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

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

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.

All your secret wishes could right now be coming true.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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