Top 22 Courtney Barnett Quotes

I have a normal life; I don’t do anything crazy.

I never planned to be a professional artist – I just want to be a sustainable artist. I guess they’re the same thing if you look at them from a different angle.

I’m just not very comfortable talking about my emotions on a normal, day-to-day basis.

I liked the idea of being a photographer, just that you take this one picture of this one thing that’ll never happen again – it’s a bit weird when you think about it.

If I make a wrong decision, I worry what might have been. I stress out over very insignificant things.

I’m self-deprecating – I spend a lot of time telling myself that things are OK, as opposed to having to tell myself to get over things.

I’m very hands on with my music – I do all the artwork and everything myself – and the songs I write aren’t necessarily the most commercial.

Dad sometimes sends me texts saying, ‘Just heard you on the radio, thumbs up’, or whatever. So that’s pretty cute.

Everyone writes in whatever way feels comfortable to them. People write songs because maybe they don’t feel so comfortable talking about whatever matters.

I hate going anywhere. I’m really excited to travel and play all these different places, but if I had it my way, I would stay inside, maybe go to the back garden or walk around the corner to the shops. That’s it.

I like reading biographies because most of them are slightly similar, and it’s voyeuristic, looking into someone’s life.

An album is a thing you take time out and go work on.

I really want a Christmas in New York one year, when it’s snowing. Like, it’s Christmas morning, and you have a fight with someone, and you run down the street, and it’s snowing, and you can’t find them.

I don’t like to overcook songs.

What’s funny about the slacker thing, people project an image of what they think a musician is: young, slack, unemployed – like a really romantic idea of a poet, writer or musician – which isn’t really true a lot of the time. I don’t reckon you would know anything about me if I wasn’t moderately hard-working.

We’re a very success-driven culture, which is such a downer at times. Even if you don’t think that way, you’re forced to think that way. Everyone is trying to subconsciously out-do everyone else.

If I write something down, it’s normally just a sharp one-liner.

I keep a journal and just kind of take notes. I don’t really so much sit down and write songs – I just take a lot of notes, and sometimes I sit down and put them all together.

People are like, ‘Wow you started your own record label,’ and treat me like I’m some sort of innovative genius, when I’m not at all. You’ve got the Internet and music – you put them together, and people hear your music.

I grew up listening to hipster jazz and classical records… we went and watched ballet and orchestras – lots of cool stuff. Which I’m really grateful for – it’s pretty nice being introduced to that when you’re little.

The first song I wrote was called ‘You,’ and it was a love song about somebody who didn’t even exist.

I played in school jazz bands and tried to start rock bands, but nobody was interested.