A part of me has become immortal, out of my control.
BRIAN ENOI’ve always thought that art is a lie, an interesting lie. And I’ll sort of listen to the “lie” and try to imagine the world which makes that lie true…what that world must be like, and what would have to happen for us to get from this world to that one.
More Brian Eno Quotes
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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.
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It infuriates me that stuff from the Internet routinely doesn’t include all the credits. Because as soon as I listen to something, if I like it, I want to know, “Who’s the bass player?” “Who did that?” “Who’s the engineer on this?
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You don’t have to act as if you know what you’re doing
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I don’t want to do free jazz! Because free jazz – which is the musical equivalent of free marketeering – isn’t actually free at all. It’s just constrained by what your muscles can do.
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For the world to be interesting, you have to be manipulating it all the time.
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Look closely at the most embarrassing details, and amplify them.
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As soon as you externalize an idea you see facets of it that weren’t clear when it was just floating around in your head.
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Law is always better than war.
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When I went back to England after a year away, the country seemed stuck, dozing in a fairy tale, stifled by the weight of tradition.
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I’m struck by the insidious, computer-driven tendency to take things out of the domain of muscular activity and put them into the domain of mental activity.
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If I had a stock of fabulous sounds I would just always use them. I wouldn’t bother to find new ones.
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Because if someone does that, you can find your own position in relation to it: what is it that I don’t agree with? In the studio I want to articulate a position clearly enough so that other people can use it – or chuck it away if they don’t want it.
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You know that in order to copyright material somebody has to write it down for you. Any piece of recorded material has to be scored in order for it to be copyrighted.
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The thing that obsesses me more than anything is waste – the waste of human intelligence and creativity.
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Of course, like anybody I repeat myself endlessly, but I don’t know that I’m doing it, usually.
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Lyrics are the only thing to do with music that haven’t been made easier technically.
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Ambient music is intended to induce calm and a space to think.
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Anything popular is populist, and populist is rarely a good adjective.
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The idea that something is uncool because it’s old or foreign has left the collective consciousness.
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People who are very confident in themselves aren’t hurt by criticism. They make use of it.
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The most important thing is the thing most easily forgotten.
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I still do mostly listen to CDs. I think that every format really is a different way of listening. If you take a different sort of psychological stance to it – like, I think the transition from vinyl to CD definitely marked a difference in the way people treated music.
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Feelings are more dangerous than ideas, because they aren’t susceptible to rational evaluation. They grow quietly, spreading underground, and erupt suddenly, all over the place.
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A big ego isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A big ego means that you have some confidence in your abilities, really, and that you’re prepared to take the risk of trying them out.
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All the best lyrics are written in ten minutes.
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People in the arts often want to aim for the biggest, most obvious target, and hit it smack in the bull’s eye.
BRIAN ENO