Michael Portillo Quotes

When I went to see certain shows when I was a kid, they changed my life. They made me tap into that place inside myself that I was unable to get to, so music is that tool, that bridge, and that's the kind of music I'm interested in making.

The power of music is real.

Music can't change the world.

Music doesn't lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music.

I make my guitar scream with pain or pleasure or sensuality. It makes people move their feet and shake their bodies. That's what music does.

If I had all the filmmakers that traumatized me when I was a little kid in this room, all I would say is, 'Thank you,' because they've made me who I am. As much as I say 'trauma,' it all comes from a place of love. The fact that I am feeling emotions at all based on a work is a wonderful thing, so I'm happy to be a part of that discussion.

What I like best about music is when time goes away.

Art is not a mirror to reflect the world, but a hammer with which to shape it

When I realized that you can actually impact people's lives like that through music, thats an incredible thing.

That’s why I make music. When I listen to my favorite music made by other people, that’s what it does to me. So as a musician, I’m just trying to do the same thing with music I make. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But when someone comes to me and says the music I’ve made has affected them emotionally, that’s the most gratifying part of my job.

I mean, the idea that it might help somebody out or help somebody make the decision to become a stewardess or otherwise... No, that's one of the nice things about making music or making movies, is that art does have the power to affect people. I feel really privileged to be a part of that.

Every song I've written, it's about what I've gone through, good or bad. It kind of comes out of me, and I'm grateful for that. I've got friends who are back home who've got no way to express that, and they're kind of in a different position in life. It's alarming to me that I've written something on my bedroom floor when I was 19 or something, and then there's 50,000 people that know the words, and they've got a similar feeling. If you thought about it too much, your head would blow up.

I believe everything is autobiographical. If it's not strictly about you, it's your peers, your obsessions, things that make you angry, or things that you've been watching or obsessing about. Preoccupying you for reasons you don't necessarily know, but it's about you. It says a lot about you. It's like when someone tells you their dream and you sit there going, "Do you realize how much you're revealing about yourself right now?" It's kind of embarrassing.

As a work progresses, its power to elicit and dictate response mounts. There seems to be an optimum moment when this power is at its greatest which just precedes the point where 'elicit' is no longer apt usage. 'Dictates' is the word for this condition and tyranny is the adversary.

To know music is to transfer it to life.

The artist has tremendous power to change the world.

I can still write blues songs because I remember everything.

My goal is to connect with people emotionally. I take life’s experiences and translate them into music — music that hopefully creates an impact on the listener.

There are times when I want to be plainspoken about my feelings in a song. But there are other times when it's really good to try and get my head around different kinds of song structures, or maybe I might get turned on by trying to write a song that would fit in this one scene in a movie. And by the end of all this, you just end up with a bunch of different ideas. And songs are really just ideas.

I want to go and write music that announces to you that you can feel something. I don’t want to tell you what to feel, but I just want you to have the possibility of feeling something.

I believe that art has incredible power.

Strumming my pain with his fingers, singing my life with his words, killing me softly with his song.

Wealth and fame can only be so important in the face of musical magic

When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature.

I hadn’t realized that music could unlock things in you, could transport you to somewhere even the composer hadn’t predicted. It left an imprint in the air around you, as if you carried its remnants with you when you went.