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I'm always hearing music in terms of what I can take out of it, and I think I've always listened like that. I have a hard time just listening for pleasure. I'm much less about instinct, and more of a utilitarian listener.

Sufjan Stevens

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Sufjan Stevens
Age: 49
Born: 1975
Born: July 1
Banjoist
Composer
Guitarist
Musician
Oboist
Pianist
Record Producer
Saxophonist
Singer-Songwriter
Detroit
Michigan
Like
Music
Listened
Take
Instinct
Hard
Hearing
Much
Terms
Always
Listening
Time
Pleasure
Utilitarian
Think
Term
Listener
Thinking
Less
Listeners

More quotes by Sufjan Stevens

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My siblings and I were raised like tenants, to be honest. There was a total absence of intimacy in my family, though there was still a great deal of camaraderie among the kids. Things were set up almost like a business, and it had to be managed that way because we were really poor, and there were a lot of mouths to feed.
Sufjan Stevens
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We live in a world that is cruel to the earth itself. Man is a biological terrorist.
Sufjan Stevens
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I like residing in abstraction.
Sufjan Stevens
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It's a mystical quality of music, that music isn't really concrete, and it's communicating abstractions about imaginary worlds. At least, my music's like that. It's not real. It's unreal, it's all fabrication. To write a song about Obama would suddenly break the spell.
Sufjan Stevens
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There's a sense of urgency in understanding that your body is not really your own. We can control it to a certain extent through habits and good behavior, but there's so much we don't have control of.
Sufjan Stevens
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I remember Detroit feeling really unsafe, feeling scared a lot. Our house was broken into, our car was stolen, we had to get a watchdog, we would get beat up in the street, I had my bike stolen. There was just a lot of real anarchy on the streets and sidewalks.
Sufjan Stevens
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We live in community, and we're created in community. We're created out of the unity of two people, and then we're made into a family. It's just inherent in who we are.
Sufjan Stevens
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Public school felt like prison - cinderblock walls, fluorescent lights, metal lockers. It was so sterile and unstimulating.
Sufjan Stevens
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I don't really have a domestic inclination. Even my apartment has a semblance of a storage facility. It's just stacks, there are no bookshelves, just books and piles of stamp collections and weird little sewing and knitting projects.
Sufjan Stevens
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I'm terrified of just being myself because I think it's boring. I know who I really am and I think it's boring.
Sufjan Stevens
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All the time we spent in bed, counting miles before we said, fall in love and fall apart, things will end before they start.
Sufjan Stevens
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I've been working a lot on figuring out how to sing differently and better. I want to become a better singer. I want to sing out more. I want to me more extroverted, vocally.
Sufjan Stevens
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Growing up on the border there, we were always frustrated with people's pronunciations of towns in Michigan, and people mispronouncing Illinois. There are all these Native American words that no one really knows how to pronounce.
Sufjan Stevens
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Fiction has always been a thorn in my side, because I've always wanted to be a writer but I can't seem to really do it.
Sufjan Stevens
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The Internet is just one big gossip chamber - that's why it's so fascinating and entertaining. It's a fabulous platform for superficial communication.
Sufjan Stevens
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The World's Fair was the precursor to theme parks like Disneyworld, and the really sort of cheap, superficial promotional architecture that you see everywhere in the US. I think there's a danger when you start creating a civilisation that isn't meant to last.
Sufjan Stevens
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Art is... a reflection of a greater divine creation. There really is no separation.
Sufjan Stevens
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Tuesday night at the Bible study we lift our hands and pray over your body, but nothing ever happens.
Sufjan Stevens
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We stayed a long, long time, to see you, to meet you, to see you at last.
Sufjan Stevens
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My music is just about story telling. I don't have much to say, and I'm not trying to change anyone's mind. I'm just singing through conviction about what I love and what I care about, starting with the very small.
Sufjan Stevens