1.
I love you more than I have ever found a way to say to you.
Ben Folds
2.
I could probably live in Bali the rest of my life and completely live in the sticks and have a f - king moped and make a record every couple of years and not step in public and break even like I do anyway. That's really tempting.
Ben Folds
3.
I do think that when you make repeated mistakes, it's usually because you're just not coming to grips with something.
Ben Folds
4.
I'm older than I was, and I'm still washed-up, and I haven't changed my music one iota. It's just much easier to do this when people are being nice to you.
Ben Folds
5.
The cruelest lies are often told without a word
The kindest truths are often spoken, never heard
Ben Folds
6.
I don't leave my neighborhood. I don't go anywhere. There are four blocks I live in and there are two coffee shops, one at each end of the block... so I don't do much driving... Some people would say they never see me because I don't go anywhere. I stay in the blue state of Nashville, in my bubble.
Ben Folds
7.
The clock never stops, never stops, never waits. We're growing old. It's getting late.
Ben Folds
8.
And all I really want to say is you're the reason I want to stay.
Ben Folds
9.
Notes don't make music until you learn to insert silence between them.
Ben Folds
10.
I feel like a quote out of context, withholding the rest so I can be for you what you want to see.
Ben Folds
11.
A lot of 18-year-olds are like old men. They think they've seen everything.
Ben Folds
12.
Next door, there's an old man who lived to his nineties and one day passed away in his sleep. And his wife, she stayed for a couple of days and passed away. I'm sorry, I know that's a strange way to tell you that I know we belong.
Ben Folds
13.
But I really do have a soft spot for the solo shows. Any musician who writes and sings will tell you that's the center of it, that is it. It's almost like there's something church-like about it and you gotta go back there, if you're a songwriter that sings your material.
Ben Folds
14.
I used to do this big rant at the end of some gigs with Ben Folds Five. The band broke into this big heavy metal thing and I started as a joke to scream in a heavy metal falsetto. I found myself saying things like: Feel my pain, I am white, feel my pain.
Ben Folds
15.
It's a tough thing to know that when you're making your album, you're going to end up collaborating with, say, Wal-Mart, on your artwork. That just sucks. And the pressure behind getting the numbers real fast is, to me, dizzying.
Ben Folds
16.
Rock and roll is - and should be - a kid's place.
Ben Folds
17.
I'm aware that I'm very fringe, and it's nice that way.
Ben Folds
18.
Everybody knows it hurts to grow up...and we're still fighting it.
Ben Folds
19.
I do have that mindset - that most good art comes from some turmoil, from someone trying to come to some equilibrium, or come up and get a breath.
Ben Folds
20.
The piano is just a different animal. It's expensive, it's big, it's heavy, and it doesn't fit in the mix easily. Everyone grew up with a piano in their living room, so rocking out on the piano was accessible - it wasn't an upper-class thing. Now pianos have become very much a piece of furniture.
Ben Folds
21.
Everyone, when you're a teenager and you're growing up, you do feel like your life is dramatic enough to be on a TV screen, but we know that it's not.
Ben Folds
22.
I'm definitely an anomaly, but I'm making things. They're selling, say, martinis, and I'm kind of making vintage Riesling. People aren't going to sit there very often, not your average public, and your average music-business monster is not going to take the time to notice the overtones and the undertones inside the flavor. They'd rather just have the martini.
Ben Folds
23.
Now that I have found someone, I'm feeling more alone... than I ever have before.
Ben Folds
24.
The way I see it, there's only one melody for any song.
Ben Folds
25.
Even though I live in America more, I feel like when I go to Adelaide, that's when I get to go home.
Ben Folds
26.
The reason I stop playing songs is usually because I get sick of them, and then they find themselves back into the set list at some point.
Ben Folds
27.
Im really good at writing almost hits.
Ben Folds
28.
I feel like a quote out of context.
Ben Folds
29.
You never know when you put out an album that's unique whether it'll get beat up for it or not.
Ben Folds
30.
People learn at the rate they are going to learn.
Ben Folds
31.
When someone really goes to tell you something about what they're thinking, they're going to wear that experience with them. That's what you have to share.
Ben Folds
32.
The press is like any business. Its a group of really intelligent individuals that ends up being one slathering, one-eyed, drooling monster.
Ben Folds
33.
The nature of honesty is that if someone has information or knows something about you that you don't want heard, then they have power over you.
Ben Folds
34.
I start songs all the time. If I weren't so lazy, I would finish them. It's like when I have a deadline I have to. I always feel very lucky that I am forced to make records at certain times. If I was forced to make 2 records a year, I would write twice as many songs. I can't make myself finish something unless I am forced
Ben Folds
35.
My job is to be some sort of music/lyric psychic, to figure out that that's the right song to not fight the lyric.
Ben Folds
36.
What stupid f - king idiot gets married a second time if the first time didn't work out?
Ben Folds
37.
Why would I want to sound like Joni Mitchell? I've got Joni Mitchell records, and they're great, and I couldn't possibly be that good.
Ben Folds
38.
The music business is a weird business. Sometimes licensing doesn't happen because some business component that you never knew about stops it.
Ben Folds
39.
My parents told me I must get married. I was seen as a failure if I didn't do it.
Ben Folds
40.
If you're afraid they might discover your redneck past, there are a hundred ways to cover your redneck past.
Ben Folds
41.
If you can't draw a crowd, draw dicks on the wall
Ben Folds
42.
White people don't sing together very often, and when they do, it's about the celebrity of the song. The singing at my shows is all about harmony.
Ben Folds
43.
Everything I write is personal, really. Even when I'm sarcastic, it's quite personal. And on this record, from the production to the singing to the performances, I got it really honest. To the modern ear, it seems soft. When you hear it against other things, it seems vulnerable. Lyrically and musically, though, this is more subtle. And, yes, it's asking a lot of someone who's used to being hit over the head with bright neon to listen to this.
Ben Folds
44.
The nice thing about age is worrying less and less about what people think.
Ben Folds
45.
I've gotten to the point where I realize that I need to tell my truth in music and not walk around blabbing my mind.
Ben Folds
46.
There is still some art in pop music. But it can't happen if you're not inspired.
Ben Folds
47.
If I'm in a relationship and my girlfriend is sleeping with other people, I don't need to know who it is; I just want to know how she feels about it.
Ben Folds
48.
I'm not really a strange person or anything, so if there's music I like, usually there's other people who like it too.
Ben Folds
49.
The less I talk in bars, write emails, express myself in an emotionally lewd way outside of my songwriting, the more I have to do it through my music.
Ben Folds
50.
Off the coast and I'm headed nowhere
Ben Folds