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I think the biggest wrestling match-up I have is how to respond to the word quirky. Or the alternate, nerdy. Both are essentially benign to the reader, but if you're a writer just sort of involved in your creative process, they seem like very small motivations.

John Flansburgh

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John Flansburgh
Age: 64
Born: 1960
Born: May 6
Film Director
Guitarist
Musician
Singer
Songwriter
Lincoln
Massachusetts
John Conant Flansburgh
Word
Motivation
Nerdy
Process
Reader
Quirky
Think
Writer
Benign
Thinking
Seem
Wrestling
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Involved
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Small
Essentially
Motivations
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Biggest
Alternate

More quotes by John Flansburgh

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Have you heard Alanis Morisette trying to play the harmonica? She doesn't know how to play the harmonica. Well guess what, Alanis, I INVENTED the 'don't-know-how-to-play-harmonica-harmonica-solo.'
John Flansburgh
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I feel like musicians have such a precarious place in the political discourse, because musicians are, sort of just by nature, people-pleasers.
John Flansburgh
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I don't lose a lot of sleep worrying about aliens, but I think it seems possible that there's life forms beyond our solar system.
John Flansburgh
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I wrote a thirty-second song that I couldn't finish for a year.
John Flansburgh
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Bill O'Reilly knew he could just filibuster and enjoy all the airtime that a full interview would give him, and then also grab the sensationalist headlines that he enjoys creating. He used this as fodder for his show for weeks. I wouldn't want to be on the bad side of Bill O'Reilly. But then again, maybe I am now. By giving this interview.
John Flansburgh
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Look, up in the sky! It's the sky!
John Flansburgh
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You have to define how much of a cultural politician you are as a performer. There are times where I just want to remain a civilian.
John Flansburgh
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We've been a band longer than most of the people reading this have been alive.
John Flansburgh
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In an interview John [Linnell] said, 'At a certain point you just get tired of the way the other person breathes,' and I took that pretty hard because I, personally, am infatuated with the way John breathes.
John Flansburgh
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Being in a band, a lot of times people think of what you're doing in terms of a competition. They talk about where you are professionally in your career, and all this other stuff. And if you're a lifer, you know it's going to be ups and downs. It's not like anybody is always just steady on.
John Flansburgh
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I think that the most effective social protest that any artist can do would be things that come naturally and feel obvious. I think the Resist movement will continue among people who believe in science, who believe in rights for women, who believe in civil rights.
John Flansburgh
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The simplest app on your smartphone requires 40 peoples' purest imagination. The challenges with people on environment, we just have to open some of that creativity. But I don't think it's necessarily about heating clouds or enormous chemical changes in the atmosphere.
John Flansburgh
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The main thing that we're doing is thinking we can control anything, which is the biggest false assumption we can make. I think we can figure out how to tread a lot more lightly on the environment, and we'll be a lot better off.
John Flansburgh
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There have been times I wanted to cry on interview, but it hasn't been because that's what they're trying to conjure. No. I think you have to graduate to some higher level of TV IQ for people to actually want to see you cry.
John Flansburgh
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We want to be original. To express our most interesting stuff. But you don't see the word original come up very often to describe big bands. Our job isn't to pigeonhole ourselves or describe where we fit in. Our goal isn't to fit in. Our goal is to be free of all that stuff.
John Flansburgh
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There's so many simple things that can be done to change our carbon footprint, and to reduce our carbon footprint.
John Flansburgh
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A lot of times I'll post things on Facebook, and the immediate response will be like, Stick to the music!
John Flansburgh
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It's hard to tell a shallow person that they should care more about the feelings of the awkward and the alienated.
John Flansburgh
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People love fact-based songs, which is a very funny idea.
John Flansburgh
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So we've done science songs. We've done historical songs. A lot of people would like us to do more historical songs. Our history record would probably be like the people's history of the United States, set to music.
John Flansburgh