Carrie Brownstein

“That's so rare in the world of TV or film to have a genuine friendship turn into something that people watch, that people relate to. That's so unique.”

“I'll admit that I'm not quite certain how to sum up an entire year in music anymore; not when music has become so temporal, so specific and personal, as if we each have our own weather system and what we listen to is our individual forecast.”

“Writing isn't necessarily about what one knows but what one wants to know.”

“I felt that first awareness that there’s a whole set of species whose sounds and calls you’ve never heard—the wonder of realizing that people are growing up with an entirely different sensory experience from yours. This whole country seemed so shiny to me.”

“I always find that nostalgia is sort of like memory without the pain. And that's why it feels so good to kind of bask in that, and I think it can be deceptively comforting.”

“When my father came out to his mom, my grandmother said, 'You waited for your father to die; why couldn't you have waited for me to die?' I knew then that I never want to contribute to the corrosiveness of wanting someone to stay hidden.”

“Not even the creators of 'Rock Band' could possibly believe that playing the game is tantamount to making your own music. There is, however, a sad similarity between 'Rock Band' and some actual bands, and that is the attempt at realness.”

“Music was a means through which I could meet people and sort of begin the process of exploring who I was or who I could be.”

“When it comes to music, we should be hoping for as outlandish a Republican candidate as we can get.”

“I like to connect with people through my work. That's my favorite way - meetings of the minds, fans at a show. Those are nice mediated ways of hanging out.”

“With Sleater-Kinney, we have a lot of earnest fans, and we were an earnest band.”

“I feel like I live a pretty quiet life. I like to focus on work and friends, and I love being in nature.”

“One summer, when I was elementary-school age, my neighbors and I built guitars and keyboards out of scrap wood, painted them in bright colors, and formed the cover band Lil' 'D' Duran Duran. We didn't make our own noise or even pretend to play our fake instruments.”

“From the ashes of Bauhaus, Love and Rockets transformed its grandiosity and excesses into boldness and virtuosity. Plus, it wasn't afraid of a catchy hook or two.”

“Back then, I was still just a fan of music. And to be a fan of music also meant to be a fan of cities, of places. Regionalism—and the creative scenes therein—played an important role in the identification and contextualization of a sound or aesthetic. Music felt married to place, and the notion of “somewhere” predated the Internet’s seeming invention of “everywhere” (which often ends up feeling like “nowhere”)”

“We would go out and play these songs and people could interpret them however the hell they wanted.”

“I have no desire to play music unless I need music.”

“Only in retrospect can I find clues to my father's gayness. Sometimes the dull detritus of our pasts become glaring strands once you realize they form a pattern, a lighted path to the present.”

“I'd rather do spontaneous and silly work like ThunderAnt than have somebody's film on my shoulders.”

“It's hard to beat the visceral high of playing live and creating something spontaneous.”