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Culture is everything you don’t have to do.

Brian Eno

I prefer to shoot the arrow, then paint the target around it. You make the niches in which you finally reside.
BRIAN ENO

Arrows Niche Target
I wanted quite the opposite of that. I wanted them to accent their styles, so that they pulled away.
BRIAN ENO

Away Pulled Quite Wanted
Think inside the work – outside the work
BRIAN ENO

Inside Thinking Work
Make an exhaustive list of everything you might do & do the last thing on the list.
BRIAN ENO

Last might Statistics
I had a lot of trouble with engineers, because their whole background is learning from a functional point of view, and then learning how to perform that function.
BRIAN ENO

Function Trouble Views
I thought it was magic to be able to catch something identically on tape and then be able to play around with it, run it backwards; I thought that was great for years.
BRIAN ENO

Play Running Years
My lyrics are generated by various peculiar processes. Very random and similar to automatic writing.
BRIAN ENO

Peculiar Process Writing
What happens with notation is that it reduces things to a language which isn’t necessarily appropriate to them. In the same way that words do, you get a much cruder version of what was actually intended.
BRIAN ENO

Appropriate Language Notation
All the best lyrics are written in ten minutes.
BRIAN ENO

Best Minutes Written
There’s a kind of edge to what you’re doing, the kind of leading edge of what you’re doing. Inside that edge [are elements you] are familiar with, and are probably becoming slightly bored with, as well, over a period of time. “I’ve pulled that one out before. Oh, no, I can’t I’m just fed up with that.
BRIAN ENO

Bored Retrospect Thinking
I’m fascinated by musicians who don’t completely understand their territory; that’s when you do your best work.
BRIAN ENO

Best Musician Territory Work
Avant-garde music is sort of research music. You’re glad someone’s done it but you don’t necessarily want to listen to it.
BRIAN ENO

Avant Done Garde Research
For instance, I’m always fascinated to see whether, given the kind of fairly known and established form called popular music, whether there is some magic combination that nobody has hit upon before.
BRIAN ENO

Combination Form Kind Magic
The idea that something is uncool because it’s old or foreign has left the collective consciousness.
BRIAN ENO

Consciousness Ideas Uncool
A part of me has become immortal, out of my control.
BRIAN ENO

Become Control Immortal Part
Stop thinking about art works as objects, and start thinking about them as triggers for experiences.
BRIAN ENO

Art Philosophical Photography
When I’ve finally got the title, I think, “Okay, yes, now I know where we are. Now I know what it is. Fine, that must be finished or nearly finished.
BRIAN ENO

Fine Thinking Titles
I believe it builds character and, more than anything else, encourages a taste for co-operation with others. This seems to be about the most important thing a school could do for you.
BRIAN ENO

Believe Encourage Important School
One of the great breakthroughs of evolution theory is that you start with simple things and they will grow into complexity.
BRIAN ENO

Evolution Simple Theory
A responsible designer might try to overcome this limitation – probably the engineers at Marshall tried, too. But that sound became the sound of, among others, Jimi Hendrix. That sound is called electric guitar.
BRIAN ENO

Celebrity Electric Guitar Music Overcome Responsible
If you grow up in a very strong religion like Catholicism you certainly cultivate in yourself a certain taste for the intensity of ideas.
BRIAN ENO

Grow Up Ideas Strong
In England and Europe, we have this huge music called ambient – ambient techno, ambient house, ambient hip-hop, ambient this, ambient that.
BRIAN ENO

Country Hip Hop House Person
Editing is now the easiest thing on earth to do, and all the things that evolved out of word processing – ‘Oh, let’s put that sentence there, let’s get rid of this’ – have become commonplace in films and music too.
BRIAN ENO

Earth Editing Film Sentence
The reason I don’t tour is that I don’t know how to front a band. What would I do? I can’t really play anything well enough to deal with that situation.
BRIAN ENO

Band Enough Play
Look closely at the most embarrassing details, and amplify them.
BRIAN ENO

Amplify Details Looks
If I had a stock of fabulous sounds I would just always use them. I wouldn’t bother to find new ones.
BRIAN ENO

Fabulous Sound Use
I wanted to use the studio like a microscope for sound, which is what good engineers do.
BRIAN ENO

Microscopes Sound Use

Culture is everything you don’t have to do.

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Culture is everything you don’t have to do.

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