Ariel Pink quotes:

I have a theory: I believe that with the advent of the United States and the lawful definition of marriage, it was defined as between one man and one woman. It was anti-polygamy, in effect saying no man can hoard his women.

I do get credit for having a California sound to my music, but I don't think people really know what that means - they think the Beach Boys. I'm thinking more like Sunset Strip in the 1960s and stuff like that.

I always wanted to get into rock music so I could cover up my real personality, change my voice, and create a false self to hide behind.

I have lots of friends, but I'm probably a terrible friend to all of them, even my family. I wouldn't be surprised if I found myself with no friends later on in life. My friends become my enemies.

The media lies to us all the time, and we always believe the media.

I'm in love with Ariana Grande - she's got a very curious personality; I hear she loves Freddy Krueger, and I love Freddy Krueger, which makes me feel like we'd be perfect for each other.

You marry your friends when you stay with your friends. It's hard enough to find a good roommate, let alone a good person you can live with and fall in love with at the same time. You might as well just take your roommate, if you can find one, and marry them.

I love everybody. You have to embrace all facets of humanity; love and accept everyone as being part of yourself.

I don't want any injustice brought against the bullies. Bullies just don't know any better. Anyone who is crying about police brutality or victimization as an adult needs to stop it and realize the privileges we have in this country.

I'd like to be seen as a normal, attractive person with good values.

Confidence was never in short supply in my case. If anything, I think I overshot the mark with confidence way too early in my career, and gradually, it's about just getting more humble and wanting to sit down more.

There's no relationship to the narrative anymore. People want their own interpretation of history. We're compartmentalizing, forgetting what came directly before, like it's not a big deal. That, to me, is a crime.

That's one thing I don't think people consider nowadays. They want to believe in the importance of marriage, boil it down to just a signature on a legal document. But that's exactly what it is. If not, why not just get married without one?

I have a strong impulse to protect history and time and the lineage of events.

I really wanted to make the worst thing: the thing that even people who liked bad, terrible music wouldn't like - the stuff that people would ignore, always. Something really, really stupid. Something that is destined for failure.

I'm not just going to go back to my bedroom, get a job and 'get real with myself' - come on. I'm already too old, and I'm lucky to have a job at all.

In the years between 2000 and 2004, I always got the feeling that people were just starting to hear about me, and they were all late to the game. I'd be out playing shows for records that I recorded back in 1999 that were just coming out.

If I got the option of going into outer space and hanging out there for a day and then coming back home and dying the next day, or just waiting around to see if there's any opportunity for the technology to develop so that I might experience outer space sometime in the future, I would probably take the ride today and die tomorrow.

When a song blows your mind the first time you hear it, you don't know where it's going. It's blowing your mind as it's unfolding. Then there's that sensation that you're actually going to remember the song.

I couldn't imagine what it's like to be a journalist talking about music. You're left with empty descriptions; you probably have to make up a sort of weird cocktail of band influences and references to other music to get your point across.

I'm so unmaterialistic in every way. If you saw my apartment, it would explain a lot, I think. It's not so much a mess, but it just needs to have some feng shui or a real 'Queer Eye' makeover or whatever.

I want to stay in some era and remain there like a stupid idiot and see what happens when you try to pause time and not affect it. Not succeed. Not try to think ahead or think behind.

I feel like I'm neither a girl nor a boy. I don't feel like a man.

I probably would never be caught wearing a baseball cap. Hats are difficult to me because they tend to be too big for my head. They don't fit right, and I feel ridiculous.

I look suspicious if I dress in sort of benign clothes, going to the airport.

The early pictures of me you see online, in just T-shirts and hoodies - I'm still that guy with the hoodie. But what you don't get to see in most of those pics is that I had these red clogs on that had, like, eyeballs on the ends of them that I drew on. That speaks a little bit more to what I was going after, stylistically.

You marry your friends when you stay with your friends. It's hard enough to find a good roommate, let alone a good person you can live with and fall in love with at the same time. You might as well just take your roommate, if you can find one, and marry them. I mean, if you can find somebody that doesn't drive you crazy, I would say marry that.

If you are going to go to Heaven, I'm going to Heaven. But I don't believe in Heaven.

I get to live down my reputation for being cantankerous if I slowly evolve towards being a really good live show.

I was definitely a thespian of sorts in elementary school. I went to a real small private school, and every year, I participated in the talent shows and the school plays - all of 'em.

The first half of high school, I had a girlfriend, and then the second half I got to know these guys who would just get stoned and jam. I had struck the goth thing by then, but I still thought of myself as Ian Curtis or something.

I sang "Patience" by Guns N' Roses for my sixth grade talent show and I wanted to be an actor when I was younger. It was all very, very theatrical. It was only later that I separated the two and thought of myself as quite the opposite of an actor.

Talk about a struggling artist having to work against enormous odds ... But I love movies so much, so I'm going to do it.

As for performing live, I just never imagined how it would work out; for good reason, because it doesn't just work out - not the way you think it will. It's a chance that you take.

I dont want any injustice brought against the bullies. Bullies just dont know any better. Anyone who is crying about police brutality or victimization as an adult needs to stop it and realize the privileges we have in this country.

There's always room for improvement. I'm always focused on the results, and those are the precise things that I don't really experience as a part of the performance.

Oh, I had my gothy phase, but I was never a troublemaker or anything like that. I was a little bit introspective, a little bit morbid. I was small for my age, so I was bullied and that kind of stuff.

For me, self-gratification eventually took a backseat to trying to do something collaborative with other people, to trying to make something new.

I never see songs as permanent. I'm always in a state of revising everything.

I was definitely a thespian of sorts in elementary school. I went to a real small private school and every year I participated in the talent shows and the school plays, all of 'em.

I had my gothy phase, but I was never a troublemaker or anything like that.

We're all making castles in the sand, wonderful tapestries, an exquisite corpse. But is it meaningful? No. It's dogs barking. It doesn't mean anything beyond our yelping, at the pain of being alive.

I don't think I threw myself into music because I had the best intentions; it was because I was really angry.

I love to get to that place where I don't know what kind of music I'm doing; I don't know if it's any good. I don't know if it's anything. It's a big question mark. The idea is to have interesting results. That's my bottom line.

If somebody ever says something is a mature theme, it's bound to not be. I mean, you shouldn't fall for that. You can make it sound mature, but anything that's about being mature is pretty immature.

My career is a burden, but I can't just fade out like a pathetic sore loser. More often than not, I'm just making a fool of myself for the hundredth time, and that wasn't part of the plan, initially. I'd be happier not having any kind of public presence whatsoever and just hiding behind the sleeves of the CD.

I had a very active inner life as a kid. There's a good album or two worth of stuff that I can bring out on a rainy day if I have a loss for inspiration or whatever - even now.

When I get to do whatever I want, I'm perfectly happy. I've found that the best scenario is that I just do what I do, and if somebody wants to be part of it, they should work as a conduit for what vision I have. They should help me complete the universe.

I think I've been lucky enough to have had an extended adolescence. I'm a lot like I was when I was 15.

I dont think I threw myself into music because I had the best intentions; it was because I was really angry.

The universe is expanding, and every second that you're alive, the universe is bigger than it was a second before. There's nothing in front of us, exactly, other than the future, and there's no space for the size, the density of the universe to go. Because it's expanding at every point simultaneously.

It's not illegal to be an asshole.

I hate not understanding the words, because it kind of squashes the song. It shrinks the visual landscape that you've made for the sounds. And, all of a sudden, the content eclipses things.

I was been raised to believe I was an artist. I believed what my parents said and fulfilled it, like a prophecy.

I would die to record in space. That would be the coolest. If I got the option of, going into outer space and hanging out there for a day, and then coming back home and dying the next day, or just waiting around to see if there's any opportunity for the technology to develop so that I might experience outer space sometime in the future, I would probably take the ride today and die tomorrow. I'd be happy just hanging out between the moon and the Earth, getting a view.

I know when somebodys heard my music. I can hear it in their music.

I was just very into things that were the opposite of what other people liked. I didn't want to listen to music that I could find at a friend's house. My identity was really forged around that, and you know, eventually that kind of identity gets dismantled and fed to the vultures. But I was somehow on my own mission.

I backed up all my pictures on my iCloud so you canâ??t see me when I die / I left my body somewhere down in Mexico / Give â??Find My iPhoneâ?? app a try.

I envisioned all these people who had been admired for having been freaks in their own time, and I saw myself in line with them.

The music usually occurs to me as a complete sound, and then I have developed the skill of being able to translate that into a fully realized song.

I think about music in the way that I heard music as a kid - like, Oh my god, there's this weird rubbery ball of undulating things.

The things that keep me awake at night are things like textures and instrumentation and plotting out what things are going to do and what the sounds are that I'm trying to capture.

I still have a very nonintellectual, nonjudgmental relationship with melody and the music as I hear it all in my head.

I do enjoy my solo time ... I want to stay home and do soundtracks and watch TV in my underwear with a keyboard on my lap and just be a couch potato.

That's really what keeps me playing live - appreciation. And I guess I've made a lot of wiggle room for myself to try different things and discover what I'm doing, and the audience accepts it.

At 35, I'm thinking, Oh, I don't have any of that initial inspiration that I had before, all that angst. I always thought I would burn out very quickly.

It was not designed for me to be 35 and still doing the same thing. But in another sense, it's like I've had an extended adolescence. It helps that I look young, too.

Everything comes with hard work. You never get to stop working. I don't see myself ever getting comfortable enough to not have to worry about working.

You can pout about the way the world is as long as you want, but that's not going to change it. You've got to figure it out.

I definitely don't feel a sense of jealousy or competition, and that's a really good feeling.

The ideal is to live forever, right? Or to live right now and just be grateful that I feel good. I'm definitely grateful for every second that I'm alive. At this point in my life, I definitely take time out throughout the day to just stop and be like, "Everything is cool." It's as good as it's gonna be, because it only gets worse.

I'm always gonna be in opposition no matter what, but I can still cover my bases and do what I like.

It's really the creature of my own making from top to bottom. I appreciate that. And the good fortune, the perseverance, having the stamina to stick around longer than everyone else even after people write you off - that's always been a good motivating force in my life.

I don't work under the illusion that I'm the next whatever. Every time a record comes out, if it gets a good review, I'm like, "Well, one more year, guys. We bought ourselves another year."

I tried to just do things like make some money, be responsible, help out other artists who I see have had a similar path.

From day one, I was already famous in my own head. It didn't take anything to make me feel that way. I know I'm totally not famous. I mean, it just depends on your perspective.

My music already has this oldish kind of quality to it, like you don't necessarily know what era it was recorded in, so it all kind of felt surreal and weird. Night after night when I played live, I was really trying to figure it out in real time, and I still don't know what effect I'm going for or what effect I actually achieve. Looking back, I feel like it would be arrogant of me not to appreciate the fact that I've been able to do whatever I want and still have an audience come see me.

In the years between 2000 and 2004, I always got the feeling that people were just starting to hear about me and they were all late to the game. I'd be out playing shows for records that I recorded back in 1999 that were just coming out.

I've learned that I shouldn't shrink from success. Though honestly I thought they'd be knocking on my door years ago.

My goal is to make something special and pure, and that keeps me going, keeps me busy on the path of sobriety.

I'm not dissatisfied, just not satisfied in an ultimate sense.

I'm a product of my environment.

The world is full of bands and bullshit, and if I'm doing a stupid art project like rock 'n' roll then I want to spare my audience as much as possible.

It's just about pushing yourself to realms that are uncharted. I love to get to that place where I don't know what kind of music I'm doing, I don't know if it's any good, I don't know if it's anything. It's a big question mark. The idea is to have interesting results. That's my bottom line. Not just a creative fantasy world or something like that, but a mood too.

As soon as you start to think of that thing that you want to convey or say, you can always just say it much better than you can actually rhyme it or stuff it into a song. It's very, very difficult to just kind of get your point across without going the back way. And you have to be good at that, to not think about things so hard. Let the pen take over, so that it's somebody else's job to dissect the lyrics and tell you what you're all about.

I've kind of gotten more timid. I used to be fearless - at a certain point I didn't care about what anybody thought. I had all the answers and I could have been as bad as I wanted to be. But nowadays I just want to be good and make people happy.

I remember being very psyched for our first tours, despite not knowing about the endless stream of situations and setbacks that we'd face.

When making a record, I could done a new face pretty easily and use all these different devices to hide who I am - or who I was - which really had very little to do with what I was trying to convey.

I knew what I wanted to do, which was to become a recording artist, so I definitely felt like I had a calling. The performing part was the part that I wasn't sure about.

I always want to be a member in the audience, and I want to hear it from their point of view and see it from their point of view so I can know if it's good. But that's just my issues, not a real problem.

During those formative times, I really didn't know what was going on, and I was sort of torn in a thousand different directions with how I felt about what I was doing.

I've always wanted to do a movie, and I really feel the urge to do it.I'm in Hollywood - I have no business not being in the movie industry.