Explore Quotes by Brian Eno

What matters in modern music is not the part you can write down, the words and the tune, but the rest - the texture, the atmosphere, the references and associations.

If you had a sign above every studio door saying ‘This Studio is a Musical Instrument’ it would make such a different approach to recording.

I cant duplicate my own successes, because part of the creation of that effect is making something happen that you didn't expect

The great benefit of computer sequencers is that they remove the issue of skill, and replace it with the issue of judgement

I despise computers in many ways. I think they’re hopelessly underevolved and overrated.

I've got a feeling that music might not be the most interesting place to be in the world of things.

Anything popular is populist, and populist is rarely a good adjective.

Everything is an experiment until it has a deadline. That gives it a destination, context, and a reason.

Nothing so dates an era as its conception of the future.

I believe that singing is the key to long life, a good figure, a stable temperament, increased intelligence, new friends, super self-confidence , heightened sexual attractiveness, and a better sense of humor.

Think inside the work - outside the work

The thing that obsesses me more than anything is waste - the waste of human intelligence and creativity.

John Cage made you realise that there wasn't a thing called noise, it was just music you hadn't appreciated.

Every increase in your knowledge is a simultaneous decrease. You learn and you unlearn at the same time. A new certainty is a new doubt as well.

In art, you CAN crash your plane and walk away from it

The whole point of art, as far as I’m concerned, is that art doesn’t make any difference. And that’s why it’s important. Take film: you can have quite extreme emotional experiences watching a movie, but they stop as soon as you walk out of the cinema. You can see people being hurt, but even though you feel those things strongly, you know they’re not real.

If something is good, you must torture it mercilessly until it is either dead or great.

All the best lyrics are written in ten minutes.

The idea that something is uncool because it’s old or foreign has left the collective consciousness.

I often say to people that producing is the best paid form of cowardice. When you produce things you almost always get credit, if it's a good record, but you hardly ever get the blame if it's not! You don't really take responsibility for your work.

I occasionally meet people and they say, 'Oh, I was born to Discreet Music'... They always have very weird eyes, those people.