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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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Sufjan Stevens
Age: 49
Born: 1975
Born: July 1
Banjoist
Composer
Guitarist
Musician
Oboist
Pianist
Record Producer
Saxophonist
Singer-Songwriter
Detroit
Michigan
Towns
Pronunciation
Growing
Pronounce
American
Illinois
Words
Michigan
Really
Border
Always
Frustrated
People
Native
Borders

More quotes by 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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It's traumatic to meditate on the availability of information through the Internet, or the way we perceive the world as a result. People don't experience things totally or viscerally anymore. It's all through representation, be it a record on YouTube or a post on a blog.
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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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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We stayed a long, long time, to see you, to meet you, to see you at last.
Sufjan Stevens
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I've always been obsessed with electronics and using computers and software. It's always been part of my vernacular.
Sufjan Stevens
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I think of the saddest thing I can and then add a sick dog to that. If I think of a sick dog from the beginning, I just stop there.
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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My Dad used to say that the balance of the world relied on all of the monks who were living outside of society in creative isolation. I don't quite understand the ascetic life or the private life or the monastic private life. But I definitely understand privacy's value.
Sufjan Stevens
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One of my strongest memories is my father playing bongos in the living room in Detroit listening to Motown radio. He was this skinny white bald guy, but he was really moved by blues and Motown and funk.
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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Public school felt like prison - cinderblock walls, fluorescent lights, metal lockers. It was so sterile and unstimulating.
Sufjan Stevens
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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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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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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
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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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Art is... a reflection of a greater divine creation. There really is no separation.
Sufjan Stevens
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I'm a very self-conscious person, I think we all are, but I'm especially not very comfortable in my body. I always feel really weird and awkward on the street or on the stage. It has nothing to do with circumstances, it's just an ongoing psychological state, like white noise.
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 think musicians should stay off television generally.
Sufjan Stevens