Unconventional Expression Quotes

Poets and painters have the power to dare, I mean to dare to do whatever they may approve of.

I am not a fan of referencing your own work when it's in a different universe than what you're doing. That, to me, is a wink at the audience, and winking isn't actually cool when you're not, like, 10.

What is 'cool,' anyway? Maybe it's Warne Marsh, almost totally obscure and penniless, coming in late to a fourth-rate Hollywood nightclub, playing like an angel with a couple of sidemen, but never speaking to or even acknowledging another human being.

Uncommon things must be said in common words.

One can understand why Surrealism was not afraid to make for itself a tenet of total revolt, complete insubordination, of sabotage according to rule, and why it still expects nothing save from violence.

I am not a representative of anything. When art historians or critics or the public put somebody in a drawer like this, it has a tranquilizing, paralyzing effect. Artists are individuals. They have ideas, and the conventions for one's self as an individual are not for a group. There are always those who follow the group, but they belong in the margins. I refuse to be placed within, or added to, one particular school.

I do like artfully breaking rules.

I'm just some lunatic macaroni mushroom, is that it?

My music was never considered cool, but I've always felt that connection with the audience.

Be obscure clearly.

Punk rock should mean freedom, liking and excepting anything that you like. Playing whatever you want. As sloppy as you want. As long as it's good and it has passion.

For me, I always have looked at 'indie' as a term of 'independence.' Never associated a sonic gesture with that in the same way that pop music has always meant 'popular' to me; you know, it didn't define a sound.

The artist must be blind to distinction between 'recognized' or 'unrecognized' conventions of form, deaf to the transitory teaching and demands of his particular age.

I think we're quite unique in that we do have our own sound and approach and we don't really care what's going on elsewhere... we've never wanted to be part of another trend or movement.

Frank liked me because I went nuts on the piano using feet, head, whatever I could find to bang on the piano.

I always want to keep things unwritten. I'm inspired by Bob Dylan, who's kept evolving and changing his sound. I think that's what you should do as an artist. Why be comfortable?

I don't think anyone would bat an eye if I wrote a song.

Art is significant deformity.

It had become boring to write: 'I like Clare Balding'. To say: 'I don't like Clare Balding' is much more newsworthy.

I'm not in a certain type of genre, and I can't be categorized or pigeonholed. That leaves a wide range of what I can do for myself, for other people, and with other people.

The writer who is a real writer is a rebel who never stops.

I have friends who wear Star Wars costumes and act like the characters all day. I may not be that deep into it, but there's something great about loving what you love and not caring if it's unpopular.

I'm a person of change and I must be honest to my artistry and my creativity. That's part of the word 'jazz'... it's an adventure.

I used to get in trouble a lot in school because I would write very naughty stories and poems in class.

Flash mobbing may be a fad that passes away, or it may be an indicator of things to come.