Vanity can easily overtake wisdom. It usually overtakes common sense.
Julian Casablancas
Greed is the inventor of injustice as well as the current enforcer.
The best solutions are often simple, yet unexpected.
Religion is never the problem; it's the people who use it to gain power.
Desire is individual. Happiness is common.
I'm happy to feed the illusion that I'm a lazy recluse.
No one leaves an old friend unless they are ashamed.
Who you are vs. who you wish you were: Who wins?
I am a fan of 'SNL' and a big Jimmy Fallon fan, too.
I enjoy songwriting. It's slow-motion improvising.
The Strokes can play anything. They could play 'Thriller,' and it would just sound like 'Thriller' as played by the Strokes.
When the Strokes first started playing gigs, instead of getting into a costume for the shows, we talked about how we should dress every day, in real life, like we're playing onstage. I don't really care about clothes, but it's about wearing something that gives you social confidence. Or maybe helps you pick up chicks.
If it doesn't start with you, it dies with you.
Can our mind evolve to be something other than an extension of our animal needs?
I over-think stuff a lot.
One of the big songwriting things for me has always been: always think what you do sucks. Because the second you stop believing that, you suck. And that's a fact.
Songwriting is hard - it's so easy to fall into the same traps. It's not like I wake up and songs flow out of me.
I would prefer it if people thought that I didn't work hard, that I just played the guitar for three minutes a week and was like, 'Check out this song - what do you think?' That would be ideal. I would prefer telling people that I'm just truly talented.
I think a lot of people study the rules too much and then don't know how to be creative.
The artistic element of Manhattan has kind of moved to Brooklyn. Has it changed it? Yeah. Has it ruined it? I would say no. It is what it is. I say better that than an urban war zone.
When you first start writing a song, it's fun, then when you start recording it, it's fun, but by the time you've finished recording it, you're sick of it.
I'm just going to try and be a good dad and not spoil the kid: give him love and encouragement but also discipline. Me and my woman, we don't want him to feel too entitled.
Working on music is the funnest thing for me, and I love it, and I could do it all day, all night.
Making an album can be like being pregnant: you want to pop that thing out and show everybody!
I think all of Manhattan has pretty much become a bar-slash-nightclub-slash-restaurant. There were always pockets of that. But now every corner of Manhattan is that.
That it's a lot harder to make a keyboard sound not-cheesy than a guitar.
I see myself out of my own eyes, which means I have no idea what's going on the other way around. I just think I try to be a good person - and I fail.
Birth is a beautiful thing.
No matter who I'm talking to, I always talk like I'm doing an interview.
For a long time I didn't want to do a solo thing, but there comes a point where everyone else is going outside of The Strokes and The Strokes filtering process.
With a hundred ways to do a dozen things, why not try it all?
There are so many little places I want to play, sometimes weird places I think would be fun to play... a bar that's half full.
It's not like I wake up and songs flow out of me.
A tour is the most intense, stimulating way to hear music; it's the best form to receive it. There's genuine excitement from people. I feel like we've stepped up a level.
You know some of the people in The Strokes, yeah, their parents had success - but we didn't live like yuppies.
L.A.'s kind of, like, seven really cool towns. It's so laid-back. If you go in the right spot, you can walk around, and you don't need a car.
But it can be hard to experiment when you're in a band.
I mean, I guess you could say I'm a bit of a perfectionist.
L.A. is a vortex. The weather there tricks you into thinking you're on vacation, even when you're working fourteen hours a day.
People are always arguing: New York or L.A.? They're both great places, you know.
The thing for me is I never had this burning desire to do a solo record my whole life.
If the choice is between doing something supercool and having no one hear it and doing something equally cool and tricking people into putting it on the radio, I don't think the second option is some big sellout.
If you're in a bar and a certain song comes on and the vibe is just different, it evokes the kinds of things that you want to feel, and if music can do that it's a very special thing.
A band is a good way to break up a friendship.
Sometimes I've sat outside, not to tan, but as a result of that I ended up tanning slightly.
People often put me in a V-neck tennis club sweater, driving a Bentley, but my life wasn't like that.
I'm not a pop song lyric writer. I can't just focus on one simple meaning or even a double entendre.
Compared to people in Africa, I think we've all had privileged upbringings.
New York is in my soul.
I find it funny how people from Boston and New York hate each other because of pro teams. But, like, everyone on the Red Sox is a random millionaire athlete from somewhere else.
