41+ John Flansburgh Quotes On Education, Universe And Creative

John Flansburgh is an American musician best known as one half of the alternative rock duo They Might Be Giants. He is the lead vocalist and guitarist for the band, and is also involved in their songwriting and production. Flansburgh has also released several solo albums and produced music for other artists. Following is our collection on famous quotes by John Flansburgh on life, love, education.

Top 10 John Flansburgh Quotes

1. Look, up in the sky! It's the sky!
2. Worlds going to hell anyway, have a good time.
3. It's hard to tell a shallow person that they should care more about the feelings of the awkward and the alienated.
4. I don't lose a lot of sleep worrying about aliens, but I think it seems possible that there's life forms beyond our solar system.
5. There's so many simple things that can be done to change our carbon footprint, and to reduce our carbon footprint.
6. All rock music is fake news.
7. To a lot of people, angels are a matter of faith.
8. People love fact-based songs, which is a very funny idea.
9. A lot of times I'll post things on Facebook, and the immediate response will be like, "Stick to the music!"
10. I wrote a thirty-second song that I couldn't finish for a year.

John Flansburgh Famous Quotes And Sayings

In an interview John [Linnell] said, 'At a certain point you just get tired of the way the other person breathes,' and I took that pretty hard because I, personally, am infatuated with the way John breathes. — John Flansburgh

I guess the revival of vinyl records is not helping the environmental problem. Although, in some ways, people don't throw records away - I mean, I still have records from when I was 5. So it doesn't seem quite so wasteful. But maybe I'm just lying to myself. — John Flansburgh

I think that the most effective social protest that any artist can do would be things that come naturally and feel obvious. I think the Resist movement will continue among people who believe in science, who believe in rights for women, who believe in civil rights. — John Flansburgh

It sucks to think about, honestly, but when you really consider the resources that it takes to press vinyl records, or the amount of gas that it takes to tour, it's really quite scary. — John Flansburgh

For instance, our music, They Might Be Giants, has this element of humor, which is probably the most uptight part of what we include in our music, because we're in part very self-conscious guys, and we want our music to stand up to the test of time, not just be visceral comedy records. We love humor and comedy, but there's this aspect to it that runs counter to what is included in most music. — John Flansburgh

This happened years and years ago, right as our videos were first being played on MTV. The interviewer said, "You guys are getting famous now. Are you going to be riding around in limousines, doing drugs, and sleeping with beautiful women?" And I was a precocious young man, and my snappy comeback to that cheerful question was, "We're willing to sleep with beautiful women." But no part of the question was in the article. — John Flansburgh

There have been times I wanted to cry on interview, but it hasn't been because that's what they're trying to conjure. No. I think you have to graduate to some higher level of TV IQ for people to actually want to see you cry. — John Flansburgh

Every declarative statement that comes out of an interview with somebody is actually in response to a question. It's like this very real interpersonal dance where one of the people involved is invisible. — John Flansburgh

That's what I call 'Guiliani Time', my friends. 'We've got a problem. Let's kill it.' — John Flansburgh

We want to be original. To express our most interesting stuff. But you don't see the word "original" come up very often to describe big bands. Our job isn't to pigeonhole ourselves or describe where we fit in. Our goal isn't to fit in. Our goal is to be free of all that stuff. — John Flansburgh

If you're looking at the array of performers, there's just a lot of people that it's about getting closer to them. That's not really our focus. It's funny, with the kids' stuff, we really sell ourselves as the MC, but it's much more like we're Ed Sullivan than we're like Sting. We're just the presenters. And that's an idea that we're very comfortable with. — John Flansburgh

So we've done science songs. We've done historical songs. A lot of people would like us to do more historical songs. Our history record would probably be like the people's history of the United States, set to music. — John Flansburgh

When we're on tour, probably we don't go 24 hours without someone asking us where we came up with the name They Might Be Giants. Which, on one level, seems like a completely legitimate question. If I think of other bands, like The Beatles, it would explain to me that John Lennon had a proclivity for slightly cheap puns. But I'm not sure how much insight that would give me into what's actually good about The Beatles' music. — John Flansburgh

That really sums up the strange bluntness that a really prime German interview can have. They're really interested in your cultural velocity in this way that I don't think people in the United States even necessarily think about alternative-rock bands. So it's not like we're against regular rock. We're not like a battling army shaking our weapons against The Rolling Stones. — John Flansburgh

The main thing that we're doing is thinking we can control anything, which is the biggest false assumption we can make. I think we can figure out how to tread a lot more lightly on the environment, and we'll be a lot better off. — John Flansburgh

Bill O'Reilly knew he could just filibuster and enjoy all the airtime that a full interview would give him, and then also grab the sensationalist headlines that he enjoys creating. He used this as fodder for his show for weeks. I wouldn't want to be on the bad side of Bill O'Reilly. But then again, maybe I am now. By giving this interview. — John Flansburgh

Being in a band, a lot of times people think of what you're doing in terms of a competition. They talk about where you are professionally in your career, and all this other stuff. And if you're a lifer, you know it's going to be ups and downs. It's not like anybody is always just steady on. — John Flansburgh

Sometimes you have to wonder if there isn't an ejector seat built into having a popular-music career. We were lucky when we started. We were already old when we started - you could have described our first album as "aging Brooklyn guys." We were in our late 20s. We weren't octogenarians, but a lot of bands were already younger than us. Fortunately, we've held on to our manly good looks. — John Flansburgh

In Germany there's something about rock music much more political than it really is - like everything you were doing was an indictment of the American culture. I read an interview with one of the members of Sebadoh. He was saying he had just got back from touring Germany for the first time in five years or whatever, and one of the interviewers asked him, "Why aren't you still relevant?" — John Flansburgh

Sometimes people will ask a real "Why are you beating your wife?" question where there's some assumption built into it, and all you're trying to do is kind of re-contextualize it with some element of truth, and it comes across as incredibly defensive, or just really weird. — John Flansburgh

If you do believe in science, you really have to actually stand up and make a stand for it. You can't just say, the facts aren't in. Science is always looking for better explanations to everything, but that doesn't mean that when we get on a plane we don't know what's supposed to happen next. And if it doesn't go the way that it's planned, that's a big, big problem. The culture wars are very tricky and make me a little sad. — John Flansburgh

Have you heard Alanis Morisette trying to play the harmonica? She doesn't know how to play the harmonica. Well guess what, Alanis, I INVENTED the 'don't-know-how-to-play-harmonica-harmonica-solo.' — John Flansburgh

The simplest app on your smartphone requires 40 peoples' purest imagination. The challenges with people on environment, we just have to open some of that creativity. But I don't think it's necessarily about heating clouds or enormous chemical changes in the atmosphere. — John Flansburgh

I don't think bands should feel compelled to speak out unless they actually have something to say. I think that's a big mistake, where you're turning into a coyote running off the edge of a cliff. Too often, people just feel like something is happening and they want to be part of this thing, and it's just, there's sort of a "me too!" and that's about it. — John Flansburgh

I read The Onion, and I've read a lot of interviews that are very direct, often with people who are never direct. Which is interesting. But somehow the A.V.Club part of The Onion, I don't think is telegraphed into the popular culture. — John Flansburgh

I feel like musicians have such a precarious place in the political discourse, because musicians are, sort of just by nature, people-pleasers. — John Flansburgh

We've been a band longer than most of the people reading this have been alive. — John Flansburgh

I think the biggest wrestling match-up I have is how to respond to the word "quirky." Or the alternate, "nerdy." Both are essentially benign to the reader, but if you're a writer just sort of involved in your creative process, they seem like very small motivations. — John Flansburgh

You're like, "I don't want to argue with Dr. Drew on national radio." You're like the invited guest. But at the same time, as a thinking person, it's very difficult just to stand by and go, "Yeah, man, it's cool." — John Flansburgh

I feel like the future is unwritten. So many of the things that we write now haven't been about educating people on the environment, they've been about disseminating facts. But I feel like it could be productive to write something that explored directly the idea of fragility. — John Flansburgh

You have to define how much of a cultural politician you are as a performer. There are times where I just want to remain a civilian. — John Flansburgh

Life Lessons by John Flansburgh

John Flansburgh's work teaches us to never be afraid to take risks and be creative. He has shown us that it is possible to make a career out of music and to never give up on our dreams. His music has also taught us the importance of collaboration and working together to create something unique and special.