A biography for Ezra Furmanhasn’t been written yet.
“I think most of the work of songwriting is thinking of great phrases - I'm addicted, always on the hunt for a really great phrase.”
“People get stigmatised for their bodies and for their differences. Then those people become very vulnerable.”
“I wrote 'My Teeth Hurt' in April 2018 when my teeth hurt and I didn't have dental insurance.”
“I see a skill developing of writing about not just feelings that I'm feeling, but things that I deeply care about as well.”
“Judaism is a way of thinking, more than anything else, that I think is entirely distinct, and the more you know of it, the more you can enter into that kind of thinking.”
“The Velvet Underground is probably the best band that's ever existed, assuredly the best American one.”
“It's a good feeling to not tell people what's going on.”
“My favourite artists are the ones who are human, and you know they're not in a failure-proof environment.”
“I don't like the notion that artists have a responsibility to be political.”
“One of my goals in making music is to make the world seem bigger, and life seem larger.”
“I take it hard whenever anything happens that makes, I guess, queer people feel less safe and less welcome in the world.”
“I was a suburban kid who fancied myself somehow intellectual. I was into punk rock but I couldn't get into the subcultural signifiers of dyed hair, safety pins and torn denim. Being a punk seemed like a new set of rules that I wasn't interested in having to follow.”
“I want to be a force that tries to revive the human spirit rather than crush it, to open possibilities rather than close them down. Sometimes a passionate negativity is the best way to do that.”
“It's one of the guiding philosophies of my life - not fearing any authority on earth.”
“I'm interested in God. I'm not interested in religion for religion's sake.”
“I'm going to make the music I wish someone else was making.”
“Chuck Berry invented rock 'n' roll. He was one of the best songwriters of the 20th century.”
“I heard the Velvet Underground and that changed things when I was like, 15.”
“I believe an authentic Judaism would legislate total equality for queer people.”
“I don't think I'll ever be able to fully explain the way that the Velvet Underground's records opened a door in my head. But it has something to do with Lou Reed as a mythic figure: a person who fitted no category, who defied limits and trends and definitions.”