Obviously, the cinematography of films is art, just as a still shot can be art. If I'm watching a Wes Anderson movie, the colour palettes alone, and the way they're painted, could be art. With music, you're a little bit limited, of course, because it's only audio.
We all know we have a finite period of time. I just feel if I'm going to be alive, I want to be challenged - to be as immortal as possible. The path to that isn't an easy way, but it's a rewarding way.
It's more interesting for me to figure out how to be superior in areas where I'm naive, where I'm a novice.
I hope not to define myself by suffering.
The Internet is just another experiment showing us more sides of us.
People are just afraid of things too much. Afraid of things that don't necessarily merit fear.
Super-envious of the fact that Daft Punk can wear robot helmets and be one of the most famous bands in the world, while also understanding that will never be my situation.
I wrote 'Channel Orange' in two weeks. The end product wasn't always that gritty, real-life depiction of the real struggle that happened.
I'm big on what's in good taste.
I've written some great things. That's a gift, but there's consequences. Yeah, you get this great work, but you suffer. You really, really suffer.
When I was growing up, there was nobody in my family - not even my mother - who I could look to and be like, 'I know you've never said anything homophobic.' So, you know, you worry about people in the business who you've heard talk that way. Some of my heroes coming up talk recklessly like that.
I'm not a centerfold.
I had writer's block for almost a year.
Sometimes, I want to talk on a song and be angry, because I am angry. Then there's always a part of me that remembers that this record lives past my being angry, and so do I really want to be angry about that? Is that feeling going to have longevity?
Some people focus more on sonics. Some people focus more on story. I focus on both sonics and story, but music sometimes, just music itself, can turn into more of a maths problem. I guess everything in life is a math problem, but it can be more about an empirical route to getting the symmetry that you want, and this vibe, sonically.
It's not essential for me to have a big debut week; it's not essential for me to have big radio records.
When you write a song like 'Forrest Gump,' the subject can't be androgynous. It requires an unnecessary amount of effort.
The first four and a half years was me in the studio every day, writing songs for other people. I had jobs, too - eleven jobs. I worked at Kinko's, Fatburger, Subway - I was a sandwich artist - and I was a claims processor at Allstate Insurance.
Whenever I think about movies, I always look at that art process as having the best of a lot of worlds. Because if you watch a great film, you have a musical element to it, not just on the scoring, but in the way that the shots are edited - that has music and rhythm and time.
It's cool to be recognised by your peers.
