Quotes by

Brian Eno

Ive got a feeling that music might not be the most interesting place to be in the world of things. – Brian Eno

Musicians are there in front of you, and the spectators sense their tension, which is not the case when youre listening to a record. Your attention is more relaxed. The emotional aspect is more important in live music. – Brian Eno

Lyrics are always misleading because they make people think that thats what the music is about. – Brian Eno

I dont live in the past at all Im always wanting to do something new. I make a point of constantly trying to forget and get things out of my mind. – Brian Eno

One of the interesting things about having little musical knowledge is that you generate surprising results sometimes you move to places you wouldnt if you knew better. – Brian Eno

Something Ive realized lately, to my shock, is that I am an optimist, in that I think humans are almost infinitely capable of self-change and self-modification, and that we really can build the future that we want if were smart about it. – Brian Eno

Ive noticed a terrible thing, which is I will agree to anything if its far enough in the future. – Brian Eno

Ive had quite a lot of luck with dreams. Ive often awoken in the night with a phrase or even a whole song in my head. – Brian Eno

Its not the destination that matters. Its the change of scene. – Brian Eno

I think most artists would be happy to have bigger audiences rather than smaller ones. It doesnt mean that they are going to change their work in order necessarily to get it, but theyre happy if they do get it. – Brian Eno

One of the things youre doing when you make art, apart from entertaining yourself and other people, is trying to see what ways of working feel good, what feels right. – Brian Eno

Law is always better than war. – Brian Eno

If you are part of a religion that very strongly insists that you believe then to decide not to do that is quite a big hurdle to jump over. You never forget the thought process you went through. It becomes part of your whole intellectual picture. – Brian Eno

If you grow up in a very strong religion like Catholicism you certainly cultivate in yourself a certain taste for the intensity of ideas. – Brian Eno

In England and Europe, we have this huge music called ambient – ambient techno, ambient house, ambient hip-hop, ambient this, ambient that. – Brian Eno

I got interested in the idea of music that could make itself, in a sense, in the mid 1960s really, when I first heard composers like Terry Riley, and when I first started playing with tape recorders. – Brian Eno

Perhaps when music has been shouting for so long, a quieter voice seems attractive. – Brian Eno

I wanted to get rid of the element that had been considered essential in pop music: the voice. – Brian Eno

Music in itself carries a whole set of messages which are very, very rich and complex, and the words either serve to exclude certain ones or point up certain others. – Brian Eno

I make a lot of pieces of music that I never release as CDs. – Brian Eno