170 Quotes by Kim Gordon

For me performing has a lot to do with being fearless. I wrote an article for Artforum in the mideighties that had a line in it that the rock critic Greil Marcus quoted a lot: “People pay money to see others believe in themselves.” Meaning, the higher the chance you can fall down in public, the more value the culture places on what you do. Unlike, say, a writer or a painter, when you’re onstage you can’t hide from other people, or from yourself either.

If you’re at all anxious, the city acts out your anxiety for you, leaving you feeling strangely peaceful.

The clothes in themselves are empty. But what they throw off and what clothes mean as signifiers is incredibly interesting – to see what people do with it. That’s more interesting to me than flipping through a magazine or seeing the fall look.

It wasn’t some Puritan thing. Straight-edge was asking adherents to take control of their lives, not to be blind consumers, and not to be tricked into thinking that drinking and drugs were cool since in fact they were the tools of a previous generation.

I think of myself as unconventional. I maybe always had a problem with authority, like a stubbornness about what’s expected – despite wanting to get some recognition through performing – but also not always wanting to do the expected thing.

There’s only so many small shows you can do. A lot of the smaller things are more side project things. Not everything is appropriate for Sonic Youth to do.

It’s really hard for me to sing and play bass.

Eu nunca quis ser qualquer coisa, exceto quem eu era.

I’ve always felt there’s something genetically instilled and inbred in Californians – that California is a place of death, a place people are drawn to because they don’t realize deep down they’re actually afraid of what they want. It’s new, and they’re escaping their histories while at the same time moving headlong toward their own extinctions. Desire and death are all mixed up with the thrill and the risk of the unknown. It’s a variation of what Freud called the “death instinct.