Perfume Genius Quotes

Author Image

Perfume Genius

Profession : Musician

Birth : September 25, 1981

I think the best mood for writing is a heavy feeling that's a little bit removed from you. Sometimes I feel very self-indulgent and bratty and ungrateful, and no good music comes out of that. But sometimes I can be really sad or have an excess of feeling yet somehow be able to see the big picture more.

Perfume Genius

For a while, I thought I would maybe be a writer. But with music, I was such a nerd; I was really obsessive about it. The problem was I couldn't really sing. I think one day I sang from a different part of my body, from my gut for the first time, and I was like, 'Oh! That's how you're supposed to do it.'

Perfume Genius

One of the things that 'Too Bright' refers to is how there's a lot of times where I see things that I could change that could make me more contented, but I usually just don't make those changes because they seem new and scary. I just stay where I'm at, even if I'm miserable, because I'm familiar with it.

Perfume Genius

I don't feel like I make sense in the world. I don't feel like I look right. I don't feel like I act right or do right. It's very frustrating to me that I just walk around with this all the time.

Perfume Genius

My favorite movie is 'Dogfight' with River Phoenix and Lili Taylor. The ending is kind of bittersweet but so real and moving and complicated.

Perfume Genius

I feel trapped in my body. I want to be like like Scarlett Johansson in 'Lucy,' when she unlocks everything within her - I want to do that. I want to be the alien in 'Arrival' - a spitty, infinite-time-loop creature.

Perfume Genius

I've known that people were racist and misogynistic and homophobic since I was very little.

Perfume Genius

I saw 'Predators.' That was pretty good, actually.

Perfume Genius

There's a book called 'You're Not a Stranger Here' by Adam Haslett - short stories, a lot of them are about mental illness and gay people - that classic combination. But they're really well-written, really powerful. It's pretty good.

Perfume Genius

iTunes is my favorite record store.

Perfume Genius

I think people are surprised that I'm not - I think people come up to talk to me, and they think I'm going to be really morose. And I am, but I do that by myself - no one wants to see that. It's not really a phoniness; I just kind of keep it to myself. So I think people are surprised when they come up to talk to me and I hug them.

Perfume Genius

I've had people tell me that I should just be sad and not joke around on Twitter, but they don't understand that joking and being deeply sad are very close to each other. I'll have a horrible memory that I find hysterical one day, and the next day I'll cry about it.

Perfume Genius

I don't know if I could write a pop song without at least a little touch of bite in it, and it's usually not a bite that most people would want to sing.

Perfume Genius

I like to have fun! And everything that's good for you is not fun, and that bores me.

Perfume Genius

I am fierce, yes, but I'm serious about music.

Perfume Genius

I have a strange, not very traditional voice - I'm not Adele.

Perfume Genius

If I'm not writing, I can download a newer album everybody's making a fuss about. But when I'm writing, I keep myself in my own zone - I worry about listening to new music that'll inform me too much. I'm the kind of person who goes to another country and starts speaking in an accent after three days.

Perfume Genius

I really never want to try to be cool.

Perfume Genius

I like Feist's music because it's really smart, but it's really free and soulful at the same time. Sometimes you only get one or the other.

Perfume Genius

I don't think I wrote my first song until I was 25. And then everything I wrote ended up becoming my first album. I put my music online, and from that, things just happened.

Perfume Genius