As a woman of color, I always have to be at 150 percent and better than everybody in the room to be considered competent.
MITSKII think growing up the way I did has made me a lot more objective, and that’s important in the process of writing and trying to look at subjective matter that way.
More Mitski Quotes
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Things seem to take so much longer for me to do. I have to say things 10 times instead of once. I have to knock on 10 different doors instead of two. For everything.
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I think people don’t realize how little of being an artist is making art.
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A lot of musicians talk about how they were into music from the start; they always wanted to be musicians. It wasn’t like that for me. I didn’t think of it as a job or a career – it was just something that was constant.
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I tend to kind of try to use what’s in my environment to the best of my ability rather than seek out things that I don’t already have.
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I don’t care about making anything new. I make music to express an emotion, and if the emotion is nostalgic, so be it.
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I’ve been asked whether I have a hobby, and have felt strangely offended that anyone would assume I have the time.
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I understand that, because there are so many musicians, you have to make artists into brands, but I sometimes feel like I have to be some kind of non-human icon in order for people to listen to my music.
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Whenever I’ve tried to ingratiate myself to an existing community, I tend to give too much, to become whatever it is they want me to be. It’s something I do automatically – I’ve learnt to immediately adapt.
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I’m Japanese, and I’m also white American, and neither camp wants me in their camp.
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I don’t think I’m alone in this: I’m obsessed with trying to not only be happy but maintain happiness, but my definition of happiness is skewed more towards ecstasy rather than contentment.
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I think it’s our responsibility as artists to not only fight for our art but fight for the communities that are the reason we’re able to continue making art, especially since, in Brooklyn’s case, we as artists somehow made it ‘cool’ enough for the bigger money-making industries to start taking over.
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I’d always been fascinated by death, which sounds so morbid. Especially being a woman trying to make music, I think there’s a sense that you’re never young enough, or your career is going to end soon.
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I have my privileges, but I do feel like at every turn there is such resistance.
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Often I’ve had problems automatically bending to a lover’s will, becoming what I know they want me to be. Immediately, I learn all the music they love, listen to it, study it, instead of being like, ‘This is what I love!’
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When you’re young is the one time when you get to indulge in being morose and take yourself most seriously.
MITSKI