Quote

As far as implying that we know what we're doing, that we have perspective enough - by diving fully into something it requires a lot of denial, and denial is always dangerous even if all of your intentions are good and all your preparations are good. When you make a choice you're denying an infinite number of other choices.

Will Oldham

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Will Oldham
Age: 53
Born: 1970
Born: December 24
Actor
Guitarist
Musician
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Songwriter
Television Actor
Louisville
Kentucky
Joseph Will Oldham
Bonnie Prince Billy
Bonnie Prince Billy
Something
Perspective
Diving
Make
Infinite
Denying
Good
Number
Intentions
Always
Choice
Denial
Dangerous
Preparation
Choices
Requires
Enough
Intention
Preparations
Even
Fully
Implying

More quotes by Will Oldham

Image
It's good when someone says, Would you write a song for this purpose, or would you record a song for this purpose, or would you help me realize this song, again, for this purpose.
Will Oldham
Image
It is more rewarding to be complicit with scarcity than excess.
Will Oldham
Image
There are a limited number of promoters out there who care about creating music. You rarely meet a promoter who's like, I want to be responsible for the best shows, I want to make sure that these are the best shows these audiences have ever seen.
Will Oldham
Image
I need to go someplace faraway that doesn't have telephones and doesn't have a record player and doesn't have movie theaters and people walking down the street in order to not do anything.
Will Oldham
Image
Sometimes it will be for more money than I've ever been offered before. I mean, am I an idiot again for not doing that?
Will Oldham
Image
I was really looking forward to doing the thing that I do - I basically appear just at the beginning and at the end of the 'The Glory of the World' play - but when I got to opening night, I started to get really sad that that was the last time I was going to see the play as a spectator without actually being in it.
Will Oldham
Image
I feel like, for me, reading Thomas Merton is like “Wait a minute, this is a rabbit hole. This isn’t a gateway or a ticket to anything except itself”. When you're a ways into it, you're five pages in, 20 pages in, 30 pages in, it seems like one of the more oxymoronic undertakings you could attempt.
Will Oldham
Image
The less people present in an urgent situation that a moderately high stakes recording session can create - the less people there are in the room - the more openness there can be. These songs share that as well, in addition to just the obvious, basic starkness.
Will Oldham
Image
Too much emphasis is put on American roots music when people try and place me. You know, I grew up listening to punk.
Will Oldham
Image
You're making something that won't be what it is until some unknown date in the future. All aspects of the personal disappear.
Will Oldham
Image
I am thrilled at most corners that I turn walking down the street, I'm thrilled by most pages I turn when I'm reading a book thinking of what it's going to show and what it's going to make possible for tomorrow.
Will Oldham
Image
I think that what trips up a lot of great musicians is that they become involved with too many things that aren't where their strengths lie.
Will Oldham
Image
My booking agent, of course, here and overseas, their tendency is to want to build on a certain kind of measurable success, and I was thinking yesterday, what I'd like to do is maybe start to compile a list of the best 200 to 500 capacity rooms around the world and just start going to them again and again and again.
Will Oldham
Image
I'd like my records to reach as many people as possible, but I'm also thinking in terms of how I can keep from getting jaded or unhappy with the process.
Will Oldham
Image
As it turns out, as an adult I can have a very unpleasant, fierce and unforgiving temper at times. But I don't think I had that when I was a kid.
Will Oldham
Image
There's very little admirable about being a pirate. There's very little functional about a pirate. There's very little real about a pirate.
Will Oldham
Image
We always keep things very, very simple. We can make a respectable living playing a smaller room that somebody else couldn't, because they're spending a lot of money. If we can't get a show up and deliver with what we almost intrinsically have in our brains and our pockets, then I don't really want to do it.
Will Oldham
Image
Frank Sinatra's never been handsome, but he's one of my favorite singers. Who needs looks when you have a voice and power?
Will Oldham
Image
To me, the best purpose of an interview would be to illuminate some things about how somebody works for the benefit of somebody else who wants to do those things. And that's not where most interviews go at all, so to me, they seem like strange exercises in small talk and wasted air.
Will Oldham
Image
I think records and music are more appropriate and more respectful of the human soul than the churches are. And more respectful of the needs of humans to communicate with the aspects of themselves that are neglected by language.
Will Oldham