Ben Folds's Quotes

I'm really good at writing 'almost hits'.

My job is to be some sort of music/lyric psychic, to figure out that that's the right song to not fight the lyric.

Now that I have found someone, I'm feeling more alone... than I ever have before.

Rock and roll is - and should be - a kid's place.

The nature of honesty is that if someone has information or knows something about you that you don't want heard, then they have power over you.

The press is like any business. It's a group of really intelligent individuals that ends up being one slathering, one-eyed, drooling monster.

The reason I stop playing songs is usually because I get sick of them, and then they find themselves back into the set list at some point.

The way I see it, there's only one melody for any song.

There is still some art in pop music. But it can't happen if you're not inspired.

Why would I want to sound like Joni Mitchell? I've got Joni Mitchell records, and they're great, and I couldn't possibly be that good.

You never know when you put out an album that's unique whether it'll get beat up for it or not.

But I really do have a soft spot for the solo shows. Any musician who writes and sings will tell you that's the center of it, that is it. It's almost like there's something church-like about it and you gotta go back there, if you're a songwriter that sings your material.

Everyone, when you're a teenager and you're growing up, you do feel like your life is dramatic enough to be on a TV screen, but we know that it's not.

I used to do this big rant at the end of some gigs with Ben Folds Five. The band broke into this big heavy metal thing and I started as a joke to scream in a heavy metal falsetto. I found myself saying things like: Feel my pain, I am white, feel my pain.

I'm older than I was, and I'm still washed-up, and I haven't changed my music one iota. It's just much easier to do this when people are being nice to you.

In many ways, I've chosen to be plain, almost too plain, too self-effacing. Like, if I record a vocal and I don't like the way it sounds, I would have them turn it up and take the reverb off it to make it as plain as possible.