A Quote by Sufjan Stevens
I'm being explicit about really horrifying experiences in my life, but my hope has always been to be responsible as an artist and to avoid indulging in my misery, or to come off as an exhibitionist. I don't want to make the listener complicit in my vulnerable prose poem of depression, I just want to honor the experience. I'm not the victim here, and I'm not seeking other peoples' sympathy. I don't blame my parents, they did the best they could.
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I guess my music career is my personal life. You know, I've always been a writer who wants to write about my experiences. And so this experience being added to that, I - I want to live extraordinary experiences. And when I give advice to people, I want it to be sage advice.
I hope any poem I've ever written could stand on its own and not need to be a part of biography, critical theory or cultural studies. I don't want to give a poetry reading and have to provide the story behind the poem in order for it to make sense to an audience. I certainly don't want the poem to require a critical intermediary - a "spokescritic." I want my poems to be independently meaningful moments of power for a good reader. And that's the expectation I initially bring to other poets' writing.
Sometimes directors come to me when I have to play some horrible thing, scary or hysterical or crying; they ask, 'Did you study somewhere to be an actress?' No, this is life. That's why I think I don't want to say you need a really bad experience to be a good artist, but bad experiences in your life say something.
People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.
I just want to be the biggest artist that I can be, and I want to make a difference. I feel like Michael (Jackson) made a difference with everything that he did. He was so charitable and just always on-point. I just want to be where he is, as an artist.
Happiness takes work. It doesn't always fall off trees or come easily. You really have to be someone that doesn't fall prey to being sad. I don't want sad, I can't be sad, I don't want to be about sad; I avoid sad. It inherently envelops you, so do everything that you can to escape it all the time.
A lot of people talk about life. Some love it. Some disparage it. And a few realize that life can be what you make it because they have learned from past experiences. Lessons learned from these experiences have often contributed greatly toward seeing the possibilities in what some people call "the game of life." When we've "been there" and "done that," we can have as good of an idea of what we don't want as what we do want. Experience is certainly an excellent teacher!
I'd really want to - just from my own experience as an artist working with a writer, I'd want to do everything I could to tailor it to the artist I was working with.
Something I always tell students is, when you're writing something, you want to write the first draft and you want it to come out easily in the beginning. If you're afraid to say what you really have to say, you stammer. When you're thinking of your listener, that's when you start stuttering and it's just because you're nervous that your listener is passing judgment.
I want the poem to be an experience - for both the listener and for myself.
For me, just being how old I am, I know I don't want to be a single mom. I really would rather make it a two-person job. But I've also come to terms with not being a mother at all. I'm actually really good with either direction that my life can take as being a valid experience.
It's hard to balance all my projects because you don't really get to see a lot of family and friends. You have to sacrifice your social life and also a lot of sleep. You have to learn how to sleep off no sleep. It's like, what do you want in life? I always ask myself that. "What do you want to do when you're 40?" I don't want to work forever when I'm 40. I want to just be able to chill when I'm old. It's always been a dream of mine to have kids and make sure that they're all right.
I'm not really interested in playing famous people. I prefer to create characters. And I hope I have an exciting enough life that somebody might make a movie about that one day. I don't want to make movies about other people. I was once approached about playing Salvador Dali, which I thought would've been fun until I found out that he was proud of kicking a blind man across the street. So, I decided, I didn't want to play that guy. So, I think I'll just keep it the way it is.
I don’t think people are really seeking the meaning of Life. I think we’re seeking an experience of being alive…we want to feel the rapture of being alive
I don't like being pigeonholed. Why would you want to limit yourself to one style or one genre? Labels are something I want to avoid. I've had it my whole life, being pushed into a place, a circumstance or situation I didn't want to be in. My motivation has always been to get away from it.
As a teacher myself I've been in situations where parents come at you, and sometimes parents come across like the teacher doesn't want the best for their kid and it can be really, really hurtful.
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