120 Quotes by James Murphy

There are some people who are just plain great at making music. That's not who I am.

You can't be afraid to embarrass yourself sometimes.

I actually want to write a treatise in defence of pretension. I think the word 'pretension' has become like the word 'ironic' - just this catch-all term to distance people from interesting experiences and cultural engagement and possible embarrassment.

DJing is really, really pleasant. It's like having people over and making hors d'oeuvres.

As things mature - whether they be real estate, rock n' roll, politics, festivals, radio - there's an efficiency that develops, and with it, very often, comes some soul-crushing truths.

When I want to DJ what I think to be the best-sounding place in the world, I go to this place in Sapporo, Japan, called Precious Hall, which has kind of a custom sound system with a much lower ceiling and a smaller room.

I wouldn't say I'm a friend of David Byrne, but I guess I'm an acquaintance. I'm obviously an admirer, and we've met, but we don't call and chat about 'Breaking Bad' or anything.

Producing is always really hard, and you can never tell who's going to be easy to get along with and who's going to be difficult.

We didn't set out to be cool. We set out to be an extremely tight band. We wanted to defy expectations. The more negative your mindset on coming to one of our gigs, the better for us, frankly.