Top 60 Grimes Quotes

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

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

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.

I’m against spending money to record.

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

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

I like creating beauty out of scary things.

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

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.

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.

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

I went through my adolescence having this revelatory experience – I can have any music I want, and I can get it immediately. For me and for a lot of people I know, there’s this musical eclecticism that happened.

Music is a religion to me and my friends.

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.

Especially with music, people want confidence.

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

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.

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.

I think I have serious latent Catholic guilt issues.

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 always wanted to be really experimental.

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

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.

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

I don’t own anything designer.

I’ve always been very intense about everything I do.

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.

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

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

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

You want people to hate you. If you’re just making people happy, you’re like Mumford & Sons.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’ve always been such a nerd.

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

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

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

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 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.

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.

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

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

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 listen to a lot of medieval music.

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

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

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

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’m a super-introverted person.

It’s interesting to be a front person who is controlling the majority of the sound.

I think my sound is post-Internet.