Top 70 Maggie Rogers Quotes

I played in orchestras all through high school and taught myself how to play guitar.

Music is about connecting with people on a personal level and doing that one set of ears at a time.

When you’re super passionate about something, you’re more willing to do all of the grunt work. You know, like, I’m so willing to live on a bus for my whole life because that means I get that one moment on stage or that one moment in the studio that totally fills me.

I remember going to church at home on Christmas in 2016, and people wanted to take my photo. When I’m home in Maryland, I don’t leave the house. That’s a weird feeling.

When I write songs, it happens very quickly, sometimes 10 to 15 minutes, and I draw inspiration from everything.

It’s funny because, based on the music I was making before, if you’d asked me who was the one gatekeeper or influencer whom I’d want to hear my music, I don’t think Pharrell would be the first person I’d pick.

It’s not like I see colours. It’s just, for me, an incredibly strong association between music and colour.

Music is the most amount of joy or good I can do in the world.

In terms of my voice, I’m very clear about who I am as a person and what I think.

The reality of the music industry is that I was a 22-year-old college graduate who was able to walk into boardrooms and be the one in charge. It’s incredibly empowering. I wasn’t ready – I definitely was not ready – but I was prepared as I possibly could have been because I had studied the music industry.

That’s why people come to live music, right? To see something go wrong, something human, something vulnerable.

What I love about going home is that, if I turn my phone off or don’t open my computer, nothing’s changed. Obviously, the world has changed for me, but home looks and feels exactly the same.

For me, it’s important to ask what are you making, and what’s the public’s relationship to that. And I say public relationship because I don’t really care so much about any sort of reception.

People want to see a magical fairytale story, but the reality is that I spent a lot of time making music alone in my bedroom.

Friends came on the road, came on tour, came in my music videos; I got in the studio with them. I’m a really loyal person, and I don’t have a really large group of friends, but the people I hang out with I really, really care about, and they continue to be a part of my life.

Everybody thinks that touring is really glamourous, but I pretty much sit in a room all day. I have a sort of office where I do emails, and I go for a run, and then at the end of the night, I go to bed. It’s not like some crazy party.

Musicians have been political literally since people were writing songs.

I’ve always measured a good day as one where I can read, write, and run.

I know some artists who write every day, and for a while, I felt really guilty that I didn’t.

I dress as a combination of space cowgirl and San Francisco art teacher.

I want to have a long career. But that’s based on wanting people to buy into my voice and not into a fabricated image.

I didn’t actually start playing the banjo until I was in high school.

When I was little, my mum would take me to see the orchestra, tell me to close my eyes and think about the story the music was telling. I always spoke about colours. I’d talk about how purple the oboe was.

You go to school in New York because you want New York and the life that comes with it.

I just kind of, like, know who I am. I think that comes from having an incredibly strong sense of purpose for a very long time.

I’m kind of a funny writer because I write very sporadically.

I do play a lot of instruments. I started with the harp when I was young and then sort of moved to guitar and piano.

When someone said, ‘Let’s go to a club’ in New York, it often meant heels and tight dresses and money.

Ask about music growing up, I’ll tell you I grew up playing classical music, and I didn’t grow up in a musical household.

I’m a private person. I am quiet.

Bjork – she wears really weird stuff, and it’s amazing.

I find, as a woman and as a producer, I spend a lot of time convincing people I actually did the work.

Ask me my influences, I always talk about Bjork and Beck because they’re independent voices in the music industry.

I love being outside.

Writer’s block is your self-critic getting in the way, because creativity will just flow otherwise.

The thing about fans is you don’t get to choose your own. But every time I meet a fan, I’m like, wow, we would totally be at the same house party.

I really wanted to make a record that would feel fun to play live.

There were a couple of months when I was approaching graduation where I started to think of graduating from college as the afterlife. Because it’s this kind of crazy thing that you always know you’re going to finish school inevitably, but nobody ever really tells you what happens afterwards.

New York is so strange. Every time I’m there, I very rarely see someone who’s dressed cool.

The craziest thing is I didn’t know I could sing like this – ever. My voice has changed, or I’ve grown into it, woken up.

It took me two years to write ‘Fallingwater,’ but it’s one of my favorite pieces I’ve ever made, and it was worth waiting for.

I think so many of the themes from the natural world mimic emotional themes in our lives.

It’s really easy to go viral, but I think it’s really hard then to have a career.

The main rhythmic loop in ‘Alaska’ is me just patting on my jeans.

I just didn’t really know who I was, so I didn’t really know what I sounded like. And so I did a lot of writing, and I studied abroad, and I fell in love, and, like… I got to be like any other college student.

This job forces you to ask yourself so many questions: Do you want money? Do you want power? Do you just want to be good at your craft? I don’t know what I’m doing. I just want to be happy. But I know I have to keep making music.

As a producer, as a songwriter, I’ve spent a lot of time either in my bedroom or in studios, alone.

I think, as a musician, or even as a citizen of the world, I just want to be a part of something or feel connected to something bigger than myself.

I studied abroad my junior year of college.

The Pharrell video cut my body and soul in half.

I grew up writing songs and producing music, and I studied music production in college.

I only get compared to women, which is crazy because often the women they compare me to… we just have a similar hairstyle. Whether it’s Joni Mitchell or Florence and the Machine – our music doesn’t always sound anything alike. But we just all have long hair.

I’ve always been a very visual creator. I make mood boards or sit with coloured pencils and scribble and try and figure out what I’m trying to work through musically.

I feel really held in being vulnerable. That’s always been the kind of music that I’ve gravitated to as well, but to feel really supported by my audience in that is a real privilege.

The music industry is so cool because it’s constantly changing.

‘Alaska’ was filmed at my family’s farm in Maryland; ‘Dog Years’ was filmed at the summer camp I grew up going to in Maine.

‘Dog Years’ is sort of my way of saying goodbye and ‘see you soon’ to my friends from college.

If you’re not changing, you’re not growing; you’re not being present. Change is essential.

What I love more than anything in the entire world is making music. It’s what I studied in school.

I kind of always get described as this, like, ‘nature girl’… I’ve lived in New York for the last five years.

I’ve never made R&B. I’ve never made gospel. I’ve never made hip-hop – I don’t think I’m going to, but I just want to keep challenging myself.

I got the craziest crash course in rock n’ roll that I could have ever dreamed of.

I didn’t decide on what college I was going to go to until the day I had to.

I always saw myself as this quiet, introspective, thoughtful person.

The only thing I wanted to do in my music is be human and communicate all the aspects of that, which often means being vulnerable.

The reality of my life is it’s about 25 percent music, and everything else I do is so I can get that 40 minutes later to go play. And it is unquestionably worth every second of it.

The make-up and the costumes were me being scared. I needed to create a boundary between me and the audience. To project this bigger version of myself. Outwardly, it looked good, but inwardly, I began to feel horrible.

Folk music usually romanticises the road. ‘Back in my Body’ tells the opposite story.

I grew up in a really rural area in Maryland.

I spent my whole life in Maryland, but I wanted to experience more – fighting to get to urban areas where there was culture.