Flying Lotus Quotes

I feel like there's a lot of pressure on artists to be 100-percent organic all the time.

I cannot live under pressures from patrons, let alone paint.

Music has become a bigger business, and with that there is more pressure to succeed; I think that it creates a negative pressure for being creative.

One could get locked in by the Pulitzer, thinking, 'This is who I am.' Doors open with it, but doors in your mind could close.

I think, ultimately, the problem with something like this is that you actually have so many more opportunities to say something than you actually have things worth saying. And then, as an artist who doesn't want to do bad work, gosh, how do you fill up all that space when you really don't have anything actually worthwhile to say? And that's what makes the job tough, because the fans get mad - "That's not funny," or "You've been sucking for several months now." And you go, "It's not my fault! I'm trying."

When I am doing music, I sometimes become over compulsive to 'always make some new music'. I think I am like this because I sense what others are perceiving me as. If I work extraordinarily hard because of these expectations, I will, but I just cannot produce the good music that I want.

I realized in the early days I just didn't edit at all. But I think you become a little more cagey with your lyrics when you know more people are going to hear them and make assumptions about you as a person. Realizing that, you want to be a little more opaque.

I was told when I was little I couldn't have an opinion because you want everyone to buy your record and like you.

I didn't know that anything was wrong with me until the media got involved in my life.

The joy of songwriting only gets messed up if you are trying to follow up a big success, or you are trying to create a hit single, or if you have conscious thoughts of a particular outcome for the music.

I left because I could no longer make records that sounded less and less like me. I tried to please people instead of believing in my own strength, until the only thing I could do was walk away.

No, it's not a very good story - its author was too busy listening to other voices to listen as closely as he should have to the one coming from inside.

Having to make a blockbuster every time puts unhealthy pressure on creatives. The pressure on the filmmakers is so intense, I think it stifles the creativity.

There was a time, early on in my career, when it was very important for me to be liked by everyone. It meant that I was musically less honest with myself.

I try to forget about the expectation that's out there and the audience listening for the next thing so that I'm not trying to please them. I've spent a huge amount of time not communicating with those folks and denying that they exist.

I want to work with great directors and try not to put too much pressure on myself and just read things for the story and recognize when I'm drawn to something for the right reasons and try to maintain some sanity.

An audience is always warming but it must never be necessary to your work.

I didn't want to play these people any more songs and have them say that they weren't good enough. So my response was to just not be able to write anymore. I know that's not the healthiest of responses.

I ended up becoming so self-conscious that my songs stopped being about my life and started being about what people thought of my music. And that was really bad.

That dichotomy between the public consumption of the work and my intent and practice in making it is an uneasy one for me, on occasion.

A good artist should be isolated. If he isn't isolated, something is wrong.

I do feel pressure from the outside world a little bit just because everybody wants new music, which is really nice. It just proves that everybody likes what I'm doing. But at the same time, I feel like it's important to just chill and experience things and really make the songs true to me.

I really admire people who concern themselves more with how they perceive the world rather than how the world perceives them. I think, as an artist, it's very important to do that. You can limit yourself a lot if you spend too much time caring about what people think of you.

It's hard to make great art when you've got too much pressure.

To pay attention to flattery or criticism is a waste of time for artists.