Explore Quotes by Serj Tankian

We're addicted to this concept of civilization - we can't imagine living outside of it because we've had it for 10,000 years, all of what we call history. But according to archaeologists, humanity has been on this planet for millions of years in indigenous form.

I've always worked on all different types of music, some with specific project goals and deadlines and some not. Sometimes I would write a piece of music that is almost like a film score or weird electro pieces, wherever the muse took me, and I still do that.

You listen to Bob Dylan and you can't help but think of the 60s, it's very relational and if artists are true artists and not just mere musicians they need to be truthful because the music doesn't come from them, it comes from the universe and it's to be shared. At best, we're skilled presenters, and I say that at best.

With 'Elect the Dead,' I learned how to make a rock record without a rock band and make the rock record I've always wanted to make.

Composing is what I love most from what I do. Each genre has a unique expression that you cannot supplant with another. All the records co-inspire each other though they are not tied conceptually in any way to another.

Touring and putting out records is fun and cool, but I've been doing it for a long time.

Life is that perfect fine line between ironies.

I think that the memory of Armenia's genocide opened my eyes at an early age to the existence of political cynicism.

It's probably a combination of personal and non-personal matters that have led us to where we are musically.

Capitalism unchecked is not a democratic system.

In the last few years I've been listening to jazz more than anything else. I listen to a lot of world music and experimental here and there.

I like African music, and I'm a huge Ravi Shankar fan.

I don't want to spend all my time working as an activist. I don't get satisfaction out of it. I'd rather be doing something else. I'm a musician.

I have a more direct avenue to expression as an artist than I ever would as a politician.

Awareness in our society has flipped all types of injustice on its head.

A lot of pop music is based on trying to make people remember it so that they'll buy it. To me, it was not about that.

People get so attached to a position which they identify themselves with that they just spurt it out, but they can't really give you a viable reason why they feel that way.

I think every artist should follow their vision, their hearts is what they need to reveal, not something that society is looking out for.

Sometimes it's better to have a benign dictator than a dumb democracy, to be honest.

The percentage of Americans in the prison system, has doubled since 1985.

I think anytime that you go to the extreme of any mode of economics, be it capitalism or communism, you have these feedback mechanisms that make the system turn in on itself.