Grimes Quotes

I don't want to have to compromise my morals in order to make a living.

I like creating beauty out of scary things.

I don't think I know anyone who has a steady job in Montreal.

I can't censor myself; it's really important for me to say how I feel.

From an early age I knew I would be unhappy if I wasn't doing something creative.

By the time I'm 50, there is probably going to be a nuclear holocaust. I should just enjoy myself.

I cry really easily. If I see a butterfly, I'll practically burst into tears. So it's really hard for me to yell at people, because I'll feel so guilty about it. But if I don't, then they don't take me seriously and it's this endless cycle.

If you tell someone you're doing something innovative, they'll think you're doing something innovative.

Just because something might not have a deep philosophical meaning doesn't mean it's not important or relevant.

Lets make it known that we don't want to give away our beautiful homeland to corporate interests. It is our right as Canadians to be part of these decisions. The only thing standing between this world and environmental catastrophe is us

Ugly girls generally don't become successful in music. And it sucks because it's a standard that just exists.

Mariah Carey is my favorite singer because her voice sounds utterly groundless. It's not even a human voice; it almost sounds mechanical.

Whenever I'm making music I'm always waiting for the shivers to happen - that's an important thing for me.

I don't even wear shoes with heels because I hate making a noise when I walk and people looking at me.

Art gives me an outlet where I can be aggressive in a world where I usually can't be.

I'm sad that it's uncool or offensive to talk about environmental or human rights issues.

I want to say my life inspires my lyrics, but I also try to abstract them as much as possible because I don't want to refer to my life explicitly. I'm definitely really embarrassed by my lyrics.

I think Canadians make a lot of music because we're stuck inside all the time.

Obviously, I like things that are cute and aggressive at the same time, but I didn't want it to just be mini-bangs and lip-syncing in a dress. I need to get away from that stuff.

Usually when I make music, in my head I'm like 'this isn't Grimes, this is just some other project that you can release later, so there's no pressure and it doesn't matter and no-one's ever gonna hear it'.

The way that you present yourself visually totally dictates your audience and everything that anyone thinks about you.

Miami is just really fun whenever I go there. It's like this post-apocalyptic Barbie world: everything is pink, and there're palm trees everywhere. But then there are also all these people in crazy sunglasses, warehouses with sick parties where all the girls are covered in spikes and black leather. It's a very weird place.

The most valuable live thing for me is when people look like they're having a good time.

In America there's lot of cool cities, but in Canada there's, like, well, Vancouver, Toronto and Halifax may be cool, but they're so expensive. Montreal is the only city that's affordable but also has buses and culture.

I would never go to a studio. I need my space, you know what I mean? I need to be able to chain smoke and pace about, cry and like... spit. Just make noise, make a huge mess. I also feel like if I was concerned for the cost of the studio - like, 'this is costing 40 dollars an hour' - I wouldn't be able to work.

I believe the human mind is a very fallible thing, but it's the only thing that I can really know, I guess.

If I think about what other people are thinking when I'm making music, I just can't do it. It's too withheld - I need to go totally over the top, and then kind of clean it up a bit and make it more reasonable after the fact.

If painters could be compared to filmmakers, Bosch is the Hype Williams of renaissance painters. With Bosch, there's always a narrative that is very nonlinear - and that's the essence of a good music video.

I prefer making videos to making music.

I just can't perform well unless I'm wearing jeans.

Success, for me, is a song that can deliver shivers.

One thing with Montreal is it's so cold and everyone's so poor and beer's so cheap: if you go to a show you have to brave the weather to get there. So you show up and everyone's soaking wet - there's a sense of 'I trekked through three feet of snow to get here!' I think there's a kind of camaraderie that arises out of that, that's important to me as well.

Even though I really admire what Beyonce does, and she's probably got one of the best live shows in the world - honestly! - that's so not my style.

I'm a very unhealthy person, and Montreal is very cold, and I'm usually sick when I'm there.

You don't just have to be influenced by rock, or goth, anymore. It's okay to say, 'My influences are Tin Pan music from Bali and Rihanna.' There are still so many combinations that haven't been done yet.

Removing all stimulation around you is a really positive thing in terms of stimulating your creativity.

Sometimes you find people who are magnetic, but once they get in front of a camera, they freak out and get weird.

Fashion can be a really powerful tool, but it's also a place where you can be totally humiliated and have your power taken from you.

My great fear is that I'm the ultimate shallow person. I think about this kind of thing a lot, and about this phenomenon in our culture where people identify themselves with their interests. I've been trying not to think about it too much. It used to really upset me when people called me "witch house."

I feel like gender lines are changing. A couple of years ago, it wasn't nearly as OK for guys to like girly-sounding music. But all of a sudden a lot of my guys friends who would like have been really disdainful of female singers are way more accepting.

I'm so sick of my own music that I don't know if I can edit another video, which involves hundreds of hours of listening to your own song again and again and again. It becomes so grating after a while.

Especially with music, people want confidence.

If I went on 'American Idol,' I would definitely be kicked out immediately.

I think my music's kind of cold, but I don't know if it's related to the weather. It might be because it's always grey [in Montreal], it's very depressing.

Basically, I'm really impressionable and have no sense of consistency in anything I do.

I think you can hear, when you listen to someone's music, whether or not they're enjoying making it - it's so great to hear music where you can tell the person making it was just having a blast. That's really important to me as far as my process goes. That's probably why my music ends up being so poppy!

If you focus too much on development of the visual angle, it could be a detriment to what you're doing musically.

I have an intense desire to constantly make music, and I don't feel that way about anything else.

I want to make Grimes a high-fashion sci-fi act.

As a producer, I'm trying to challenge myself to just make something that is of a professional quality - not necessarily pop music, but maybe in the sense that Nine Inch Nails is professional quality.