Grimes quotes:

I feel like vocals are to music what portraits are to painting. They're the humanity. Landscapes are good and fine, but at the end of the day everyone loves the Mona Lisa.

Miami is just really fun whenever I go there. It's like this post-apocalyptic Barbie world: everything is pink, and there're palm trees everywhere. But then there are also all these people in crazy sunglasses, warehouses with sick parties where all the girls are covered in spikes and black leather. It's a very weird place.

My favorite music is never the music that anyone else likes, and other people's favorite songs are always my least favorite.

There used to be a lot of industry in Montreal, and now there's not, so it's really easy to get huge, empty spaces where you can practice and make music or make art for very, very cheap.

In America there's lot of cool cities, but in Canada there's, like, well, Vancouver, Toronto and Halifax may be cool, but they're so expensive. Montreal is the only city that's affordable but also has buses and culture.

My manager lives on my block; four of the apartments in my apartment complex of seven are people I know. It's a really close-knit community, and almost everyone on these few blocks are artists or graphic designers, because we live right on the cusp of a warehouse district.

There are a lot of musicians I've met on Twitter where it was like, 'Hey, I like your music' - and then I ended up meeting them and it turned into a friendship.

I like creating beauty out of scary things.

As a producer, I'm trying to challenge myself to just make something that is of a professional quality - not necessarily pop music, but maybe in the sense that Nine Inch Nails is professional quality.

I'm tired of being congratulated for being thin because I can more easily fit into sample sizes from the runway.

I get offers to do huge-budget music videos with big production companies all the time, but I have no interest.

I've seen Animal Collective live, and I suffered permanent hearing loss from that show!

I'm actually not a particularly negative person, but I feel like most things are better when they're not actualized. The motivation that comes from wanting something is so much more driving of people than actually getting it.

Fashion can be a really powerful tool, but it's also a place where you can be totally humiliated and have your power taken from you.

I was raised in a Catholic household and went to a Catholic school, and my childhood brain perceived medieval Catholicism as an action movie: There's this crazy omnipresent guy who can destroy you at any moment.

The thing about music is it's not an obscure pursuit, it's a very natural thing for human beings to do. Once you put in the effort, the learning curve is very fast.

I'm sad that it's uncool or offensive to talk about environmental or human rights issues.

I'm a very unhealthy person, and Montreal is very cold, and I'm usually sick when I'm there.

I'm against spending money to record.

If I'm a bad mood, I can't go on stage and smile.

I think my sound is post-Internet.

I have an intense desire to constantly make music, and I don't feel that way about anything else.

I want to make Grimes a high-fashion sci-fi act.

If you tell someone you're doing something innovative, they'll think you're doing something innovative.

I need to be able to work for 20 or 30 hours in one go in complete darkness, alone with just the computer glow.

It's obviously funny to be a meme, so I could be down with it in that regard, but it also belittles one's art.

You rarely find someone who sings really well and who produces really well; it's a problem, and I just think it's a missing link in the music scene.

Music is a religion to me and my friends.

My image seems to be so infantilized, and I don't really know why. It belittles the music.

The thing is, I really like working. If I sit around too much, I get really bad anxiety.

You don't just have to be influenced by rock, or goth, anymore. It's okay to say, 'My influences are Tin Pan music from Bali and Rihanna.' There are still so many combinations that haven't been done yet.

Just because something might not have a deep philosophical meaning doesn't mean it's not important or relevant.

Lately I've been really into screaming a lot through delay [effects], having seven people on stage topless going crazy, stuff like that. Really in your face, but maybe more organic than choreographed dance moves.

Usually when I make music, in my head I'm like 'this isn't Grimes, this is just some other project that you can release later, so there's no pressure and it doesn't matter and no-one's ever gonna hear it'.

Basically, I'm really impressionable and have no sense of consistency in anything I do.

I just watched another person I care deeply about basically turn into Gollum and my heart is broken.

I would never go to a studio. I need my space, you know what I mean? I need to be able to chain smoke and pace about, cry and like... spit. Just make noise, make a huge mess. I also feel like if I was concerned for the cost of the studio - like, 'this is costing 40 dollars an hour' - I wouldn't be able to work.

Obviously, I like things that are cute and aggressive at the same time, but I didn't want it to just be mini-bangs and lip-syncing in a dress. I need to get away from that stuff.

If painters could be compared to filmmakers, Bosch is the Hype Williams of renaissance painters. With Bosch, there's always a narrative that is very nonlinear - and that's the essence of a good music video.

Removing all stimulation around you is a really positive thing in terms of stimulating your creativity.

There aren't many other labels who I can say are that successful, and can give me as much as 4AD gives me, and still have such a great roster.

It's kind of like I'm Phil Spector, and I'm forcing a young girl to make pop music and perform exhaustively. Except, instead of it being someone else, that girl is also me.

I love a lot of very sentimental music, but I shouldn't necessarily be the person who makes it.

I like to aestheticize every possible thing that can be aestheticized.

Ugly girls generally don't become successful in music. And it sucks because it's a standard that just exists.

I think my music's kind of cold, but I don't know if it's related to the weather. It might be because it's always grey [in Montreal], it's very depressing.

When I first started out, I was making really slow, psychedelic ambient music because it was all I could do.

My set can get really screamo and aggressive, or it can be ambient and Enya-esque.

I want to make an a cappella record to release for free.

I think I have serious latent Catholic guilt issues.

When I'm making a song that's very Grimes, it just feels very insular and it feels weird to have someone else do something on it.

I'm tired of being considered vapid for liking pop music or caring about fashion as if these things inherently lack substance or as if the things I enjoy somehow make me a lesser person.

I truly love 'Gangnam Style.' I guess it's a meme. I feel like it's one of the few times where the meme and the quality combines nicely.

I don't think I know anyone who has a steady job in Montreal.

Especially with music, people want confidence.

I'm a very nervous, shy person.

I was incredibly unpopular in high school but also extremely notorious.

My dream job would be sitting in a room, cranking out hits for Rihanna.

I start a lot of songs and throw them out because the energy is not right. It's almost like the file becomes cursed. I have to delete it.

If you focus too much on development of the visual angle, it could be a detriment to what you're doing musically.

I believe the human mind is a very fallible thing, but it's the only thing that I can really know, I guess.

I like going crazy. And not just for art - I like extremes in general.

The most valuable live thing for me is when people look like they're having a good time.

I have a lot of Japanese friends: I grew up in Vancouver, and there's this huge Japanese population over there.

I'm not good at being, like, a sexy girl.

I just can't perform well unless I'm wearing jeans.

I don't want to have to compromise my morals in order to make a living.

Art gives me an outlet where I can be aggressive in a world where I usually can't be.

By the time I'm 50, there is probably going to be a nuclear holocaust. I should just enjoy myself.

Even though I really admire what Beyonce does, and she's probably got one of the best live shows in the world - honestly! - that's so not my style.

From an early age, I knew I would be unhappy if I wasn't doing something creative.

I always wanted to be really experimental.

I approach music- and this sounds crazy- as though I'm Phil Spector, and I'm cranking out these pop stars and forcing them to do all this stuff-except they're all me. But I'm not, like, transgendered.

I can tell really early on in a painting if I'm going to toss it or not.

I can't censor myself; it's really important for me to say how I feel.

I cry really easily. If I see a butterfly, I'll practically burst into tears. So it's really hard for me to yell at people, because I'll feel so guilty about it. But if I don't, then they don't take me seriously and it's this endless cycle.

I definitely see the voice as an instrument: It makes great drums, great synth pads, great everything.

I don't even wear shoes with heels because I hate making a noise when I walk and people looking at me.

I don't have any money to hire actors. I just need to get people who are going to do a good job being themselves.

I don't know if I would ever have costume changes - usually I just end up taking off my shoes, I get so sweaty, and... I just need to be comfortable.

I don't own anything designer.

I find it really hard to throw myself into something artistically where I'm making up a whole character and finding something for that character to do.

I grew up going to punk shows, that kind of thing - I don't wanna make pop punk! - but I like the idea of people going totally crazy and it being really intimate, loud and super-aggressive, but combining that with pop music.

I know texture is really important, but I think texture and stuff precedes songwriting a lot of the time these days.

I like being behind the camera because I can control perception and what people see.

I like performing, but I usually get really sick when I'm on tour, and it's just hard.

I listen to a lot of medieval music.

I love humanity, I love the way people look

I love pop music, but I also love noise music, IDM - anything really, I get something out of most kinds of music. I just need to enjoy the process.

I only work at night, generally. Usually when I work [during the day] I'll black out the windows or something.

I think a lot of music that's really innovative is not even considered because it was made by people who had a sexual image. And people assume that it's a commodified thing, so it can't be "indie."

I think Canadians make a lot of music because we're stuck inside all the time.

I think one of the reasons I'm successful as a musician is that the first like 30 shows I played, I played with no monitors standing in front of guitar amps in a shitty, smoky warehouse where people were screaming and wasted, knocking over my gear. So shows after that seem pretty easy!

I think the internet is kind of redefining what it is to be a teenager. Because there's a lot of media that's aimed at teenagers that other people are getting into. But, conversely, pornography or stuff that's intended for adults is completely readily available to anyone, like teenagers.

I think you can hear, when you listen to someone's music, whether or not they're enjoying making it - it's so great to hear music where you can tell the person making it was just having a blast. That's really important to me as far as my process goes. That's probably why my music ends up being so poppy!

I usually like to get people in because I don't have a band or anything. In cities where I have friends, I try to get them to come out and dance for me.

I want to say my life inspires my lyrics, but I also try to abstract them as much as possible because I don't want to refer to my life explicitly. I'm definitely really embarrassed by my lyrics.

I write music better in the winter, I prefer making music when it's dark.

If I think about what other people are thinking when I'm making music, I just can't do it. It's too withheld - I need to go totally over the top, and then kind of clean it up a bit and make it more reasonable after the fact.

If I went on 'American Idol,' I would definitely be kicked out immediately.

If you look at the way people behave at shows, icons are now musicians; they are the people that we worship.

I'm just very obsessed with Japanese stuff in general.

I'm so sick of my own music that I don't know if I can edit another video, which involves hundreds of hours of listening to your own song again and again and again. It becomes so grating after a while.

It takes me probably about four hours to get into the groove [with making music]. And it's really important for me to not break the groove.

It's important for people not to feel like doing things that are immature, stuff you have to try out when you're a teenager, is bad, per se. Demonizing it is one of the reasons it becomes such an issue.

It's really hard to be on stage and packing your gear when people who just saw you play are in the room, because they all just want to talk to you.

I've never lived outside of Canada, so I've been really cold my entire life. Most of my memories are coloured by the fact that I was really cold, just... all the time!

Lets make it known that we don't want to give away our beautiful homeland to corporate interests. It is our right as Canadians to be part of these decisions. The only thing standing between this world and environmental catastrophe is us

Mariah Carey is my favorite singer because her voice sounds utterly groundless. It's not even a human voice; it almost sounds mechanical.

Most of my music videos were made for under $200.

My great fear is that I'm the ultimate shallow person. I think about this kind of thing a lot, and about this phenomenon in our culture where people identify themselves with their interests. I've been trying not to think about it too much. It used to really upset me when people called me "witch house."

One thing with Montreal is it's so cold and everyone's so poor and beer's so cheap: if you go to a show you have to brave the weather to get there. So you show up and everyone's soaking wet - there's a sense of 'I trekked through three feet of snow to get here!' I think there's a kind of camaraderie that arises out of that, that's important to me as well.

Sometimes you find people who are magnetic, but once they get in front of a camera, they freak out and get weird.

Success, for me, is a song that can deliver shivers.

The groove can go for like three days - once I'm in it it will just keep going until I'm totally exhausted. But that's how I like to work, I like to be away from everyone and just get in the zone, and stay there for as long as I can keep it there.

The last thing I think about when I'm making music is its reception.

The way that you present yourself visually totally dictates your audience and everything that anyone thinks about you.

When an artist, or whomever, moves from their scene to the bigger pond, it starts getting crazy, because all of a sudden people don't respect you, and you have to start being a lot more aggressive than you would normally be.

When I'm making something I need it to be catchy - I need it to hit the sweet spot.

Whenever I'm making music I'm always waiting for the shivers to happen - that's an important thing for me.