Courtney Barnett Quotes

I think everyone's so scared of other people judging them.

There's lots of interesting stuff happening in the world. Lots of good and bad things, and there's interest in music still, which there always will be, which is always a good thing.

I liked the idea of being a photographer, just that you take this one picture of this one thing that'll never happen again - it's a bit weird when you think about it.

Once you write and record a song, it becomes everyone else's song.

I don't know anything except being female, so I don't know the opposite of it.

I try to take notes of things that happen that I think are important or interesting or just little tidbits here and there that happen in life. And some of it's even just one line or like a saying and I just go off that.

The first song I wrote was called "You" and it was a love song about somebody who didn't even exist. I remember them all because I used to always write terrible poetry. I keep all my notebooks.

I think even though things are changing a bit, we still kind of tend to grow up with girls being like, 'Don't be too loud, don't be too rude, don't be too naughty,' or whatever, to act a certain way.

I don't like to overcook songs.

If I make a wrong decision, I worry what might have been. I stress out over very insignificant things.

An album is a thing you take time out and go work on.

I think that a good song is catchy, and a great song is not catchy - but it has a deeper meaning.

If I'm not touring I'd just be at home, just driving - I'm kind of at a loss for how that stuff works.

When I was a teen, or like 18 to early 20s, I used to go to festivals all the time. I'd save all my money.

I think that if people get my music, then they get what my message is.

I don't really feel like a rock artist, but I guess in the small category of the world of music genres, that's where I fall in because I've got a guitar.

I started writing songs when I started learning guitar.

Artists thrive off each other, and when you see other people doing cool stuff, it inspires you to do cool stuff.

I've never liked songs that are about writing, or struggling to write. Maybe it's because it's too relatable to me.

I definitely grew up on a lot of American bands. I didn't really know that there were any decent Australian bands until I was around 20.

The music, I think, is just as important as the lyrics; it portrays the emotion of the song. I play the kind of music that I want to listen to.

It was cool at the rock camp - girls could just be themselves and they could be silly, they could roll around on the floor playing guitar.

Smoke Ring for My Halo was the first album I bought of Kurt's Vile, and when I first listened to "Peeping Tomboy" I was really depressed and unemployed. But the lyrics are, "I don't want to work. I don't want to sit around all day frowning." I was like, "Ah! Yes!"

"On Script" is one of my favorite songs I've ever written. I'd just been jamming on it one day, and again I was struggling with lyrics. I'm still figuring out what it's about. I've seen a couple of reviews that are like, "It's about the monotony of playing the same songs every night," because I say, "On script every night/Like a well-rehearsed stage show." It's not about that at all, but I find that funny, how people project what they think about me, or songwriters in general.

People should be free to take whatever they want from music and I think that over time I realized that different people always find different things in my songs, which is really good.

Every time I write a song it feels like it could be the last one I do, or it always feels like a fluke.

Sometimes I have something stuck in my head and that directs the rhyme that I'm writing with.

It's easier to be angry. It's harder to be positive and happy, I reckon.

I reckon that growing up, listening to so much different music, I think over time I just kind of sucked it all in and it probably comes back out through my music.

I've never really had a certain style of music in mind that I make, or am really adamant on how something should sound, but I like the process of not knowing, of just seeing what happens and what comes out.

I try to write a lot and my process is kind of back and forth. I procrastinate a lot so when I do sit down to write, I'm pretty lazy at it. And it's such a frustrating thing sometimes - writing - when you don't do it all the time, you get that thing in your head that you have nothing to talk about and you can't write songs.

Festivals are always fun. I went to a lot when I was younger and had money to go to them. I like playing at festivals. They're always kind of like a big, crazy circus.

I grew up listening to Nirvana, and then went through some bad 90s pop stuff - a lot of Australian one-hit wonders.