Thomas Mars

“It's hard to talk about love without sounding either cheesy, or revealing too much personal stuff.”

“I'm a lazy guy. I can't focus for too long. I'd rather hear a record that has no filler.”

“My favorite albums are really short.”

“The idea is not to please the most amount of people. Growing up in Versailles, the idea was to please the least amount of people.”

“Sometimes a sound gets overused. There is such a thing as a good saxophone, but it's like those fields in agriculture - they need to rest for a year or so. You need time to burn all the saxophones and start from scratch.”

“When you play in a band, you're in phase with people. When you're a DJ, you're totally off-phase. Your work time is 3 A.M. - 5 A.M. and I don't think you can connect. You're miserable the whole time. Whenever I see a DJ in the airport, they are always on the verge of crying.”

“Growing up in Versailles is like growing up in a museum, and the people living there are almost the security.”

“I think every artist needs a rule that's stupid but that helps him, like a deadline would.”

“There are different kinds of artists: the ones that inspire you, and the ones that overwhelm you.”

“Some amazing records have this power to leave you with inspiration; you're left with the urge to write something. And some records are totally overwhelming, because they are so good, they burn the bridges behind them.”

“In California, there is a strong tension between north and south.”

“It's hard to write new stuff when the songs you have written before are still changing and evolving. It would be like building something when the foundations there are not really solid.”

“When I started writing, the first thing that came out was in English. I liked a few French things, but they were very overwhelming.”