John Maus Quotes

#1. There's really not much in life that's as violent or traumatic as an encounter with somebody who really surprises you and opens up that strange dynamic that's involved in romantic love.

John Maus

#2. I'm against eating a human being alive - I don't do it. Somebody might make cannibalism jokes and laugh it off like it's nothing. I don't agree with that. I want to proclaim a rejection of cannibalism.

John Maus

#3. I really try as hard as I can on the show. If people can't see my face, if they can't see my sweat beads or at least that I'm struggling, that I'm not just pretending or going through the motions, then who can blame them for thinking that it's some kind of ridiculous piss-take?

John Maus

#4. With writing music, as a general rule I'm looking for something that surprises me, that doesn't fall within what's easy for me.

John Maus

#5. Various people have put forth that love is the scene of two, that it's not about unity, it's about two absolutely disjunct positions encountering each other. So even with something like sex you could never become one.

John Maus

#6. It seems to me that the best work I've done - and maybe this is something other people can identify with - was because it was an end in itself. It was something other than making ends meet, it was an escape from all that.

John Maus

#7. The man believes the woman's got the hidden secret. That's a rare thing. You meet lots of people, and they're all deserved of love, of course, but romantic love involves some kind of supplement: she has the secret. That's what's desired.

John Maus

#8. I am definitely interested in soundtracks that one might associate with fantasy or sci-fi - they tend to be rich with musical ideas.

John Maus

#9. Anytime you can muster the fury to actually write in the face of the impossibility of writing, that's an achievement.

John Maus

#10. I would never want to kill a human being.

John Maus

#11. The categories of woman and man are too rigid. They're going to give way to new forces. They already have, to a degree, but for most of us, this drama held sway, and we assumed our positions.

John Maus

#12. In our culture, the Oedipal drama succeeds in making us assume either a male or female sexual position. Certainly this is an ancient construct that's rapidly coming apart.

John Maus

#13. Maybe this is blasphemy to say, but I feel like music is not meant to be something that earning your keep depends on because it cheapens it and it will force you into making decisions in the interest of earning your keep, as opposed to the interest of the thing itself.

John Maus

#14. I'm sure a handful of people can relate to that experience of having some kind of romantic encounter - the event of love - which they just can't shake. They take it with them, despite their own desire, and it continually haunts them, and there's nothing to be done about it. That's a true rarity.

John Maus

#15. It's so important what you're doing in your life. It's tremendously important to the work, and no aesthetic theories take that into account.

John Maus

#16. I don't mean to romanticise the struggle, that leads to all kinds of terrible violence and absurdities that are even worse than the perverse immediate gratification.

John Maus

#17. Musical acts that feign enthusiasm for what they're doing the guitarist who jumps up and down, like it's choreographed are so transparently vacuous.

John Maus