Top 141 Quotes & Sayings by Stephen Malkmus

We always did our own mixing.

I really do think everybody can sing.

I had another version of 'We Dance' that was kind of glam-rock. It was a little 'Taking Care of Business' mixed with Simon and Garfunkel. But on the album, I did it in a down-and-out way, like the Frogs or David Bowie or something - a little torch song thing.

I'm not saying I look at those pictures all the time and think, 'Wow, I was hot.' Just, you know, I think everybody deserves to be objectified at least once in their life.

Almost every band has somebody who's the main songwriter and who has a vision, a very clear idea of how a song should be.

A good voice isn't so important. It's more important to sound really unique.

I'm more into describing a scenario and I move around in that scenario.

A lot of work - unattributed, with no dollars - goes into taking care of kids.

If a voice is just too nice, without an edge, it kinda all flows by. You forget it. You don't listen to the lyrics.

I have a thing for Baltimore: the word itself, the place - I don't know where it comes from; it's just a weird city. I have a song called 'Baltimore,' but I'm not from there. I've driven through there a lot. We've played a couple of shows there, but it's not a big market. Some good bands come from there, though. Animal Collective and Beach House.

I'm a fan of the Grateful Dead.

When you get older, you have to wrestle with what's appropriate behavior a little bit more. Am I not acting too old or too young?

In this achievement-based lifestyle, most of us have certain boxes we're checking to make us useful humans. But a lot of things you do as a parent are kinda invisible. There's a lot you achieve - just getting dinner on the table - that are more than making a song.

I've tried to rap, and I cannot do it.

Pop music catches on like a meme. It just takes a little bit of tinder, and it can become a phenomenon. You have to break through that wall a little bit. Why it happens, I don't really know.

Lou Reed is something like a personal favorite of mine, but you could always put me into that drawer of singers who can't really sing, who speak their songs.

I would be happy to produce groups, like John Cale - he was in the Velvet Underground, and then he went on to produce these bands.

I've always been attracted to negative influences - I thought that meant you were smart.

We're probably a couple of freaks who've created their own little universe, are living in our own little world and that's the only place where we can survive.

The lyrics are different from Nick Cave songs and lyrics. His songs are very narrative.

With Pavement, we had no managers and never had a lawyer. We got lucky with not signing any bad deals.

I guess the majority of people who want to ban certain musicians are the ones who are so proud of everything America stands for.

If you want to be negative about the whole thing you can say all guitar bands after the Beatles were just a waste of time because the Beatles were the best. I think it's far better to give new records a try.

'Silence Kid' starts with a broken classic-rock intro. It's funny to hear us do that. Obviously, we weren't skillful rock stars. Then it's spinning through a lot of hooks really fast, and all of a sudden, it's over.

Well, yeah, I sang to some songs on the radio or in the shower.

I am good at just looking in the kitchen and getting stuff on the table and keeping the mess minimal. There's an art to the drudgery.

I'm not sure if you can blame everything on the American way of life, but the United States are big. So, if you have a lot of people there, the percentage of stupid people is bound to be higher.

We were delighted to have Nigel as a producer. The only problem is that Nigel is so famous that he seems to dominate most interviews without being there.

If I watch a basketball game, I don't really care if a guy hit a three-pointer with three seconds left. I mean, I can like that. But I'm more interested in who drafted him and what makes him special.

I don't even think my voice is really good.

We're not on a desperate mission to write chart compatible stuff.

I never decided to start singing, to be a singer.

What producers did was mostly recording in the studio, so it never changed our sound just that much.

Freddie Gray was a story I followed closer than others, for whatever reason, in this larger narrative of police brutality.

There's no point that an album should sound like a watered down version of another album.

I'm into Zwan. Zwan was good.

I'll cover just about anything - except for a Kid Rock song.

I hate being tan.

I know why Migos are popular - they're good, and they make great videos, and they're funny.

'Summer Babe' is the start of Pavement front-loading their albums with the catchiest song first.

I like that band Get Hustle. They're cool live. I haven't heard their records, though.

But, then again, I wouldn't call myself an indie-rock supporter even if there are some really good bands out there and there will always be some real good new bands.

I wouldn't say that 'Wowee Zowee' was a success. We probably had a chance, had I focused a little more, to capitalize on the attention the band got for 'Crooked Rain.'

I'm a junior - like Dinosaur Jr.

John Waters is a genius.

I think the focus of the media changes. At the moment the more electronic stuff like trip-hop was the flavor of the month, just a little while ago. It all depends on the angle, from which point of view you see it.

I listen to things that are popular and try to think about it in a mathematical way.

There's always a chance, a goal to make something different and get it right, finally.

If you have no shame, and it’s your goal to get people into bed, how much higher could your success rate possibly be?

I'm not dying for everyone to hear everything we do. Forty minutes every two years is sensible.

There's no reason to stop. Who knows what's around the bend? To participate, meet new people. It's mostly other musicians and people like you, or anybody I meet who's in this, that keeps me going.

I like a narrative, even if it's fractured, or kind of psychedelic. But my favorite thing is if I hear words and I close my eyes and the connotations or the image I get in my head, combine with the sound of them - sometimes phonetics. I'm just stringing those together.

Despite my own doubts of being marketable or crushworthy, my goal was to write a record of peppy pop songs, hopefully without annoying anybody.

You can change the world, but if no one's listening, it doesn't matter.

I don't know if you look back on your life and just see successes, but probably the first things that pop up are the regrets.

I was a kid, I loved music, that was our social thing. That's what we bonded on. That's what my Saturday nights were, looking to see what bands were playing. And some of those people were the coolest people ever. I want to participate in that. And I hope other people feel that and they're like, "Yeah man, this is part of it, this is why I love music."

I'd like to ghost-write Liz Phair's novel. But I don't really know about that. It seems like a dignified thing to segue into as I approach the other side of 45. My hands are just full right now. There's the potential to try to write some kind of biography of Pavement - sort of a cryptic, nonfiction/fiction blowout. The story's never been told well. But that's a lot of inward-gazing that I'm not sure I want to do. I like to look out.

I didn't really like confessional poetry or things. They seemed sort of dated to me, or just corny.

I'm sort of socially inept, so music is my way to connect to people. It's a means of socializing and having a life. Otherwise I wouldn't bother. I would just make home recordings and play them for myself. And that's not really healthy.

The word "down," is very musical. It just always comes.