Julian Casablancas Quotes

The artistic element of Manhattan has kind of moved to Brooklyn. Has it changed it? Yeah. Has it ruined it? I would say no. It is what it is. I say better that than an urban war zone.

Boarding school didn't feel like my world, I felt like an alien; people there had a lot of money.

I over-think stuff a lot.

I would prefer it if people thought that I didn't work hard, that I just played the guitar for three minutes a week and was like, 'Check out this song - what do you think?' That would be ideal. I would prefer telling people that I'm just truly talented.

When the Strokes first started playing gigs, instead of getting into a costume for the shows, we talked about how we should dress every day, in real life, like we're playing onstage. I don't really care about clothes, but it's about wearing something that gives you social confidence. Or maybe helps you pick up chicks.

If you're in a bar and a certain song comes on and the vibe is just different, it evokes the kinds of things that you want to feel, and if music can do that it's a very special thing.

A tour is the most intense, stimulating way to hear music; it's the best form to receive it. There's genuine excitement from people. I feel like we've stepped up a level.

I always want to make Strokes records and play Strokes shows.

If it doesn't start with you, it dies with you.

No matter who I'm talking to, I always talk like I'm doing an interview.

Can our mind evolve to be something other than an extension of our animal needs?

People often put me in a V-neck tennis club sweater, driving a Bentley, but my life wasn't like that.

With a hundred ways to do a dozen things, why not try it all?

Whenever I go to shows, I end up looking at what shoes the guy onstage is wearing and the jacket he's got on. And when you know everything's gonna be under scrutiny, it makes you feel more comfortable if you have cool stuff.

There are so many little places I want to play, sometimes weird places I think would be fun to play... a bar that's half full.

Songwriting is hard - it's so easy to fall into the same traps. It's not like I wake up and songs flow out of me.

I'm always writing something. I've got so much stuff, I don't know what to do with it. Some of it will be Strokes, some of it will be I don't know what - stuff for pop singers. TV themes. I've got a jar stuffed with songs, all these ideas that are just me humming into a recording device.

I mean, I guess you could say I'm a bit of a perfectionist.

I always reference 'Mad Max' when I think about what I want to wear. But it's a fine line between that and 'Edward Scissorhands'.

For a long time I didn't want to do a solo thing, but there comes a point where everyone else is going outside of The Strokes and The Strokes filtering process.

No one leaves an old friend unless they are ashamed.

The best solutions are often simple, yet unexpected.

Vanity can easily overtake wisdom. It usually overtakes common sense.

It find it funny how people from Boston and New York hate each other because of pro teams.

When you first start writing a song, it's fun, then when you start recording it, it's fun, but by the time you've finished recording it, you're sick of it.

Compared to people in Africa, I think we've all had privileged upbringings.

I enjoy songwriting. It's slow-motion improvising.

I am a fan of 'SNL' and a big Jimmy Fallon fan, too.

The Strokes can play anything. They could play 'Thriller,' and it would just sound like 'Thriller' as played by the Strokes.

If the choice is between doing something supercool and having no one hear it and doing something equally cool and tricking people into putting it on the radio, I don't think the second option is some big sellout.

The problem with touring isn't the traveling and the shows, it's the vegetal state you get into.

I see myself out of my own eyes, which means I have no idea what's going on the other way around. I just think I try to be a good person - and I fail.

L.A.'s kind of, like, seven really cool towns. It's so laid-back. If you go in the right spot, you can walk around, and you don't need a car.

I think a lot of people study the rules too much and then don't know how to be creative.

Desire is individual. Happiness is common.

Making an album can be like being pregnant: you want to pop that thing out and show everybody!

I very often have night terrors. Just think of the worst possible situation, and it's a regular thing for me. I've died in my sleep twenty-three different ways.

I'm happy to feed the illusion that I'm a lazy recluse.

A band is a good way to break up a friendship.

You know some of the people in The Strokes, yeah, their parents had success - but we didn't live like yuppies.

It's not like I wake up and songs flow out of me.

The thing for me is I never had this burning desire to do a solo record my whole life.

People are always arguing: New York or L.A.? They're both great places, you know.

Greed is the inventor of injustice as well as the current enforcer.

I think all of Manhattan has pretty much become a bar-slash-nightclub-slash-restaurant. There were always pockets of that. But now every corner of Manhattan is that.

I'm just going to try and be a good dad and not spoil the kid: give him love and encouragement but also discipline. Me and my woman, we don't want him to feel too entitled.

Birth is a beautiful thing.

I find it funny how people from Boston and New York hate each other because of pro teams. But, like, everyone on the Red Sox is a random millionaire athlete from somewhere else.

Religion is never the problem; it's the people who use it to gain power.

Who you are vs. who you wish you were: Who wins?