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Who You Are Vs. Who You Wish You Were: Who Wins?

-Julian Casablancas

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Who You Are Vs.

Julian Casablancas

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Who You Are Vs. Who You Wish You Were: Who Wins?

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More From Julian Casablancas

Sometimes I've Sat Outside, Not To Tan, But As A Result Of That I Ended Up Tanning Slightly.

Birth Is A Beautiful Thing.

Beautiful Things

I Have To Say, I'm Good With Gifts. If I Find Something Perfect For A Certain Person, I'll Just Get It And Put It Away In A Kind Of Nook Under My Bed - A Little Gift Hutch, If You Prefer.

The Best Artists Are The Ones That Work The Hardest, And If You Work Hard Enough, You'll Eventually Experience The Happy Accidents That Are Art.

Happy Accidents

I'm Really Grateful. But I Never Had The Rock Star Dream. I Thought It Would Be Cool To Be A Modern-day Composer.

I Don’t Shake At The Site Of Alcohol Anymore. I Don’t Feel The Need For It. If Anything I’ll Get Stoned. I Always Told Myself If It Got To The Point That It Was Affecting My Songwriting And Music That I’d Stop. And It Did Get To The Point.

I Over-think Stuff A Lot.

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.

When I Hear Sam Cooke's 'a Change Is Gonna Come', It Frustrates Me Because No Matter How Hard I Try, I Can Never Be That Good.

I Mean, I Guess You Could Say I'm A Bit Of A Perfectionist.

Compared To People In Africa, I Think We've All Had Privileged Upbringings.

The Way Lou Reed Wrote And Sang About Drugs And Sex, About The People Around Him - It Was So Matter-of-fact.

But It Can Be Hard To Experiment When You're In A Band.

I Very Often Have Night Terrors. Just Think Of The Worst Possible Situation, And It's A Regular Thing For Me. I've Died In My Sleep Twenty-three Different Ways.

You Know Some Of The People In The Strokes, Yeah, Their Parents Had Success - But We Didn't Live Like Yuppies.

In Most Cultures, You Can Have A Kid At 18 And It's Not A Big Thing. It's Not Like, 'oh, You've Got To Get A Different Haircut And Move To The Suburbs And Act, Like, 35.'

Doing Heroin Is Like Walking Around With A Terrorist As Your Friend. It's Like Taking A Terrorist Around To Parties You Never Know When It's Going To Blow Up On You.

I Think A Lot Of People Study The Rules Too Much And Then Don't Know How To Be Creative.

The Thing For Me Is I Never Had This Burning Desire To Do A Solo Record My Whole Life.

I Feel Like I've Given Up A Lot Of My Fantasies. I Just Want To Do Things Differently, And To A Lot Of People That's Annoying. I Like Weird Stuff. I Always Hoped If We Had A Big Success It Would Be On Our Own Terms.

I Kinda Like Messing With Perception A Little Bit. Kind Of What Drugs Do Sometimes, And Drinking. I Mean, You Know, You Mess With Your Mind A Little Bit To See Life From Different Angles. Within Reason, If You Can Handle It.

Boarding School Didn't Feel Like My World, I Felt Like An Alien; People There Had A Lot Of Money.

I Always Want To Make Strokes Records And Play Strokes Shows.

I Feel Slightly Confused About Certain Things. Practical And Tactical Things. When You Try To Make Everyone Happy… In The End You've Got To Make Yourself Happy.

Make Yourself Happy

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.

The Strokes Can Play Anything. They Could Play 'thriller,' And It Would Just Sound Like 'thriller' As Played By The Strokes.

Make Sure Your Heart Is Singing Right Until The Day It Stops.

I Am A Fan Of 'snl' And A Big Jimmy Fallon Fan, Too.

The British Press Can Be So Annoying. They Jerk You Off With One Hand And Smack You With The Other.

Art Is The Image Of Life, It's Purpose Simply To Enhance It.

Desire Is Individual. Happiness Is Common.

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.

Working On Music Is The Funnest Thing For Me, And I Love It, And I Could Do It All Day, All Night.

Don't You Dare Get To The Top And Not Know What To Do.

Now, The Good Of Business Is Put Above Anything Else, As Corporations Have Become The New Ruling Body. Most Decisions Seem To Be Made Like Ones Of A Medieval King: Whatever Makes Profit While Ignoring And Repressing The Truth About Whatever Suffering It May Cause (like Pop Music, For That Matter).

No Matter Who I'm Talking To, I Always Talk Like I'm Doing An Interview.

Religion Is Never The Problem; It's The People Who Use It To Gain Power.

I Always Reference 'mad Max' When I Think About What I Want To Wear. But It's A Fine Line Between That And 'edward Scissorhands'.

Edward Scissorhands

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.

I'm Happy To Feed The Illusion That I'm A Lazy Recluse.

I Think You Can Only Get Closer To Satisfaction But You Never Fully Arrive.

Pretty Much The Only Goal I've Had Since The Beginning, Which I Still Have, Is Just To Get Better, Work Hard, Focus, And Everything Else Will Just Be A Bonus. As Long As I'm Satisfied, And I Think We're Getting Better With Every Song Compared To The Last, Then I'm Satisfied And That's All I Want. If We Don't Achieve That, Then I'll Be Disappointed.

Whenever I Go To Shows, I End Up Looking At What Shoes The Guy Onstage Is Wearing And The Jacket He's Got On. And When You Know Everything's Gonna Be Under Scrutiny, It Makes You Feel More Comfortable If You Have Cool Stuff.

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.

We're So Quick To Point Out Our Own Flaws In Others.

A Band Is A Great Way To Destroy A Friendship, And A Tour's A Great Way To Destroy A Band.

That It's A Lot Harder To Make A Keyboard Sound Not-cheesy Than A Guitar.

Greed Is The Inventor Of Injustice As Well As The Current Enforcer.

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.

It's That Feeling When You Hear Your Favourite Song. That Feeling, Whether You're In A Car, At A Party Or Alone At Home Or In Bed And You Hear This Song And It Just Hits You So Strong - That’s What We Aim For.

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.

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.

People Are Always Arguing: New York Or L.a.? They're Both Great Places, You Know.

Forgive Them Even If They Are Not Sorry

I'd Like To Just Get To A Point Where Maybe We Can Say Something That Will Be Matterful. That's Definitely Not A Word, By The Way.

No One Leaves An Old Friend Unless They Are Ashamed.

I Don't Really Care About Clothes, But It's About Wearing Something That Gives You Social Confidence.

It Find It Funny How People From Boston And New York Hate Each Other Because Of Pro Teams.

Kids Are Always Honest, 'cause They Don't Think They're Ever Going To Die.

My Parents Separated When I Was Eight. I Grew Up With My Mom Alone.

I'm Not A Pop Song Lyric Writer. I Can't Just Focus On One Simple Meaning Or Even A Double Entendre.

Just Slow It Down Enough To Enjoy The Ride.

Who You Are Vs. Who You Wish You Were: Who Wins?

I Want To Be One Of Those People, Be They Writers, Poets, Musicians, Who Leaves Clues For The Next Generation. The Really Good People Leave Clues That Help Feed The Human Race. That's My Aspiration.

I Enjoy Songwriting. It's Slow-motion Improvising.

It Was 100,000 Years Before We Figured Out What To Do With Fire. Imagine Cavemen, Sitting In Front Of A Fire, Eating Raw Meat For 100 Thousand Years.

The Best Solutions Are Often Simple, Yet Unexpected.

I Guess The Best Thing About Marriage Is The Fact You've Got The Coolest Partner You Can Imagine By Your Side For All The Things You're Going To Face In Your Life. So Far, Juliet's Been There For Me. She's Been Good For My Voice, Good For My Everything.

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.

The Only Goal Right Now That I Can Have, The Only Thing I Can Offer Right Now, Is The Need To Get Good At Music, Do Something With Quality.

People Often Put Me In A V-neck Tennis Club Sweater, Driving A Bentley, But My Life Wasn't Like That.

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.

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.

Vanity Can Easily Overtake Wisdom. It Usually Overtakes Common Sense.

Can Our Mind Evolve To Be Something Other Than An Extension Of Our Animal Needs?

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.

The Problem With Touring Isn't The Traveling And The Shows, It's The Vegetal State You Get Into.

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.

Making An Album Can Be Like Being Pregnant: You Want To Pop That Thing Out And Show Everybody!

It's Like An Inner Struggle For Me, Between Saying I Don't Give A **** And Trying To Make It Work. You Want To Do The Right Thing, But I'm Sick Of People Thinking I'm Difficult.

It's Not Like I Wake Up And Songs Flow Out Of Me.

With A Hundred Ways To Do A Dozen Things, Why Not Try It All?

A Band Is A Good Way To Break Up A Friendship.

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.

In L.a., It's So Sunny Out All The Time That Even Though I'm Working All Day I Have This Illusion That I'm On Some Kind Of Vacation. New York Is So Condensed And Exciting But You Stay There Too Long And All That Turns Into Anxiety A Little Bit. It's Nice To Escape Here And There.

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