Grimes Quotes

If I only acted, I feel like I wouldn't have enough creative expression over my own sensibility, and also if I only acted, the notion of surrendering my fate and future to other people is deeply unsettling to me and it would make me uncomfortable.

I'm not interested so much in collaboration. You see that from the history of my albums.

When you're an artist, you can only do your own stuff. Even if you only write for other people, you're really more focused on yourself. So while everybody's out touring, I'm working on records.

I've known the glory of the stage and the glory of the spotlight. I still crave it. I want to be on 'American Bandstand' and 'Soul Train' as a solo artist. As a producer, songwriter and arranger, I help other artists say what they want to say. But on my records, I say what I want to say.

I enjoy making solo albums because over the years it's evolved into more of a genuine personal expression of story-telling and day dreams, and I work in a way that has more control.

If I were a writer and not a singer in 10 years, I don't know how I'd feel about writing really personal songs and getting someone else to sing them.

I'm a pop princess at heart. Pop is about distilling what you want to say and making it easy. And the way I write isn't about making things easy. It's a weird juxtaposition.

I could make a whole album with no one else involved at all. It would be a total, unadulterated expression of myself. Because whenever you have others playing on a project, their influence becomes a part of it.

The way I write my songs is that I have to believe what I'm writing about, and that's why they always end up being so personal - because the kind of artists I like, they convince me, they totally win me over straight away in that thing. Like, 'Oh my God, this song is totally about me.'

You know, I've sung a lot of emotional songs in my life, but when you're writing it yourself, it's very difficult to decide what to reveal.

In general, I don't feel artists should need producers.

I think the movie business, you meet people, and you work intensely with them, and you have these relationships - there's an intimacy to it and a familiarity to the relationship because you're having to let go of all your barriers so you can let people in and work with them.

I've never really felt comfortable co-writing. I usually go at my own speed, you know.

A lot of people don't know that before the artist, I wanted to be a writer and producer. That's always been a love of mine. Its easy for me to do it on myself, but it's fun to create for someone else.

Everything I record, I just try to sound like me and come up with songs that suit what I do and then just go for it. I never know what the public's going to like, anyway.

The only thing I don't write is the guitar solos, but even then I might suggest one or two things.

I feel really relevant and creative, and I don't think I would've made an album if I didn't feel relevant. I wouldn't have said a word.

I think most people don't know that I really write everything myself. No help. There's nobody in the studio except for me and the engineer. A lot of people don't think I'm a singer. They think I'm a rapper.

Honestly, I never felt like I wasn't an artist on my own. I always felt like the music I made was mine, whether it was part of a collaboration with people.

Making a record is an intimate experience. A good producer can get things out of you that you can't get out of yourself.

If I'm writing a song for Karen Harding, I know I can't impose what I want to say onto her. I literally have to get into her headspace and think, 'what does she want to say?' When it comes to my stuff, it's the same. What can I write that's true to me?

No fake stuff. If you have a personal relationship with a female, it'll be easier and more real to do a song.

While I write for myself, I also write for other artists too.

I started using this outlet of creativity - you know, going to the studio, writing, meeting these writers and producers - as the best form of representing myself to my fullest potential.

I want to be so giving and collaborative, but my best songs were written on my own.