Top 80 Grimes Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “I love humanity, I love the way people look.”

— Grimes

2. “Just because something might not have a deep philosophical meaning doesn’t mean it’s not important or relevant.”

— Grimes

3. “I was raised in a Catholic household and went to a Catholic school, and my childhood brain perceived medieval Catholicism as an action movie: There’s this crazy omnipresent guy who can destroy you at any moment.”

— Grimes

4. “The way that you present yourself visually totally dictates your audience and everything that anyone thinks about you.”

— Grimes

5. “I cry really easily. If I see a butterfly, I’ll practically burst into tears. So it’s really hard for me to yell at people, because I’ll feel so guilty about it. But if I don’t, then they don’t take me seriously and it’s this endless cycle.”

— Grimes

6. “I don’t want to have to compromise my morals in order to make a living.”

— Grimes

7. “I like creating beauty out of scary things.”

— Grimes

8. “In America there’s lot of cool cities, but in Canada there’s, like, well, Vancouver, Toronto and Halifax may be cool, but they’re so expensive. Montreal is the only city that’s affordable but also has buses and culture.”

— Grimes

9. “I listen to a lot of medieval music.”

— Grimes

10. “I believe the human mind is a very fallible thing, but it’s the only thing that I can really know, I guess.”

— Grimes

11. “I like going crazy. And not just for art – I like extremes in general.”

— Grimes

12. “Ugly girls generally don’t become successful in music. And it sucks because it’s a standard that just exists.”

— Grimes

13. “I’m a very unhealthy person, and Montreal is very cold, and I’m usually sick when I’m there.”

— Grimes

14. “Mariah Carey is my favorite singer because her voice sounds utterly groundless. It’s not even a human voice; it almost sounds mechanical.”

— Grimes

15. “I like being behind the camera because I can control perception and what people see.”

— Grimes

16. “The groove can go for like three days – once I’m in it it will just keep going until I’m totally exhausted. But that’s how I like to work, I like to be away from everyone and just get in the zone, and stay there for as long as I can keep it there.”

— Grimes

17. “I’m so sick of my own music that I don’t know if I can edit another video, which involves hundreds of hours of listening to your own song again and again and again. It becomes so grating after a while.”

— Grimes

18. “My manager lives on my block; four of the apartments in my apartment complex of seven are people I know. It’s a really close-knit community, and almost everyone on these few blocks are artists or graphic designers, because we live right on the cusp of a warehouse district.”

— Grimes

19. “When an artist, or whomever, moves from their scene to the bigger pond, it starts getting crazy, because all of a sudden people don’t respect you, and you have to start being a lot more aggressive than you would normally be.”

— Grimes

20. “Obviously, I like things that are cute and aggressive at the same time, but I didn’t want it to just be mini-bangs and lip-syncing in a dress. I need to get away from that stuff.”

— Grimes

21. “Especially with music, people want confidence.”

— Grimes

22. “I want to say my life inspires my lyrics, but I also try to abstract them as much as possible because I don’t want to refer to my life explicitly. I’m definitely really embarrassed by my lyrics.”

— Grimes

23. “I don’t even wear shoes with heels because I hate making a noise when I walk and people looking at me.”

— Grimes

24. “I get offers to do huge-budget music videos with big production companies all the time, but I have no interest.”

— Grimes

25. “By the time I’m 50, there is probably going to be a nuclear holocaust. I should just enjoy myself.”

— Grimes

26. “It’s kind of like I’m Phil Spector, and I’m forcing a young girl to make pop music and perform exhaustively. Except, instead of it being someone else, that girl is also me.”

— Grimes

27. “If painters could be compared to filmmakers, Bosch is the Hype Williams of renaissance painters. With Bosch, there’s always a narrative that is very nonlinear – and that’s the essence of a good music video.”

— Grimes

28. “I feel like vocals are to music what portraits are to painting. They’re the humanity. Landscapes are good and fine, but at the end of the day everyone loves the Mona Lisa.”

— Grimes

29. “I don’t have any money to hire actors. I just need to get people who are going to do a good job being themselves.”

— Grimes

30. “I’m just very obsessed with Japanese stuff in general.”

— Grimes

31. “Art gives me an outlet where I can be aggressive in a world where I usually can’t be.”

— Grimes

32. “Basically, I’m really impressionable and have no sense of consistency in anything I do.”

— Grimes

33. “I’m tired of being congratulated for being thin because I can more easily fit into sample sizes from the runway.”

— Grimes

34. “I want to make Grimes a high-fashion sci-fi act.”

— Grimes

35. “I definitely see the voice as an instrument: It makes great drums, great synth pads, great everything.”

— Grimes

36. “I just watched another person I care deeply about basically turn into Gollum and my heart is broken.”

— Grimes

37. “Removing all stimulation around you is a really positive thing in terms of stimulating your creativity.”

— Grimes

38. “As a producer, I’m trying to challenge myself to just make something that is of a professional quality – not necessarily pop music, but maybe in the sense that Nine Inch Nails is professional quality.”

— Grimes

39. “From an early age, I knew I would be unhappy if I wasn’t doing something creative.”

— Grimes

40. “I prefer making videos to making music.”

— Grimes

41. “Fashion can be a really powerful tool, but it’s also a place where you can be totally humiliated and have your power taken from you.”

— Grimes

42. “It’s important for people not to feel like doing things that are immature, stuff you have to try out when you’re a teenager, is bad, per se. Demonizing it is one of the reasons it becomes such an issue.”

— Grimes

43. “If you tell someone you’re doing something innovative, they’ll think you’re doing something innovative.”

— Grimes

44. “I’m sad that it’s uncool or offensive to talk about environmental or human rights issues.”

— Grimes

45. “I don’t own anything designer.”

— Grimes

46. “I love pop music, but I also love noise music, IDM – anything really, I get something out of most kinds of music. I just need to enjoy the process.”

— Grimes

47. “If I went on ‘American Idol,’ I would definitely be kicked out immediately.”

— Grimes

48. “I think the internet is kind of redefining what it is to be a teenager. Because there’s a lot of media that’s aimed at teenagers that other people are getting into. But, conversely, pornography or stuff that’s intended for adults is completely readily available to anyone, like teenagers.”

— Grimes

49. “I know texture is really important, but I think texture and stuff precedes songwriting a lot of the time these days.”

— Grimes

50. “You don’t just have to be influenced by rock, or goth, anymore. It’s okay to say, ‘My influences are Tin Pan music from Bali and Rihanna.’ There are still so many combinations that haven’t been done yet.”

— Grimes