Carrie Brownstein Quotes

“I will say, as a woman, when you put a mustache on, you find out a lot of things about yourself.”

— Carrie Brownstein

“With Sleater-Kinney, we did a lot of improvisation in our live shows, and even our process of songwriting involved bringing in disparate parts and putting them together to form something cohesive.”

— Carrie Brownstein

There was a clarity to the Nineties. It was pre-9/11, before that anxiety kicked in that exists right now about the financial crisis or terrorism. We were all just going to move forward into the millennium and everything was always going to get better. Then, whoops, that didn't happen.

— Carrie Brownstein

“It turns out I'm not very good at working with a traditional boss.”

— Carrie Brownstein

“I really don't know what to do when my life is not chaotic.”

— Carrie Brownstein

“With Rock Band, you can play along to Black Sabbath or Nirvana and possibly find new ways of appreciating their artistry by being allowed to perform parallel to it. Rock Band puts you inside the guts of a song.”

— Carrie Brownstein

“I feel like I came in comedy's side door, and still feel very fraudulent in many ways.”

— Carrie Brownstein

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

— Carrie Brownstein

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

— Carrie Brownstein

“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.”

— Carrie Brownstein

“Well, in some ways I had sort of the opposite experience of other people that are sort of dreaming of being in a rock band. I was dreaming of like corporate lunches and just like, and I'm not really joking. Like the whole idea to me was really appealing.”

— Carrie Brownstein

“Rihanna has guts and she always seems to be singing from someplace honest, dark and fierce.”

— Carrie Brownstein

“For a while I had somebody that came to clean my house that turned out to be in a band that I really loved.”

— Carrie Brownstein

“The game Rock Band has been haunting me like a bad ring tone. It gets stuck in my head and momentarily effaces all that I love about music.”

— Carrie Brownstein

“I read a lot; fiction and non-fiction are the mediums I find most edifying and inspiring. I watch movies and listen to music and take lots and lots of walks. Nature is a nice reset button for me, it's how I get a lot of thinking done.”

— Carrie Brownstein

“With Portlandia, I don't think our intention is always to find something funny. Sometimes the humor comes from taking something really seriously. We're okay with making somebody feel uncomfortable or uneasy.”

— Carrie Brownstein

“I love coffee. I love a midday espresso on set, just for the energy.”

— Carrie Brownstein

I think one of the reasons I haven't been doing music is because I think that some of my performance, like, needs are being taken care of in other mediums.

— Carrie Brownstein

“You can never underestimate that moment of somebody explaining your life to you, something you thought was inexplicable, through music. That was the way out of loneliness.”

— Carrie Brownstein

“I've learned to really enjoy video games. It's really toxic to have in your house, because it's really distracting.”

— Carrie Brownstein

“The fact that people go to Portland to visit a tiny feminist bookstore-no matter what the impetus is for them getting there-the fact that they go in there and look around and shop for books or stationery or whatever, is a major source of pride for me,”

— Carrie Brownstein

“I need a template of a template”

— Carrie Brownstein

“I think you should be prepared for a green-screen CGI at all times.”

— Carrie Brownstein

“For me, being in shape means, like, not having cynicism out-weigh optimism on a daily basis.”

— Carrie Brownstein

“The internet is just a scary place. It's better to just go to the doctor. Don't let Google get inside your head. It will do bad things to you.”

— Carrie Brownstein

“I think hypochondria always plays a part in the healthcare landscape.”

— Carrie Brownstein

“There are foods you should avoid. For me, sugar is a no. Because it gives me a spike and then a crash.”

— Carrie Brownstein

“I think proteins are really good for your brain. And your brain is where comedy comes from.”

— Carrie Brownstein

If you always want to look relevant, just be CGI-prepared.

— Carrie Brownstein

“I think that there's always an assumption, when a band goes on hiatus or stops playing, that there's some acrimony brewing under the surface.”

— Carrie Brownstein

“Once you're away from music, I realize that's as intrinsic to who I am as anything else. That's the part that takes me out of my brain.”

— Carrie Brownstein

“I've realized that I have a lot of different loves, and I want to pursue writing, but I can never divorce myself from music.”

— Carrie Brownstein

I like how blogging emulates fandom because it's so completist and spontaneous. It really mirrors the way people listen to music, and I like that fluidity with online content.

— Carrie Brownstein

I've always loved writing. Doing that at the same time as playing music can be tiring.

— Carrie Brownstein

“I always felt that the most common thread in my life from when I was young until now has been a highly observant, very analytical mind.”

— Carrie Brownstein

“I like to take things incrementally, and strive for something that feels more attainable.”

— Carrie Brownstein

“I think short-term goals are important. Trying to set a missive for yourself for the entire year can be daunting, and it can feel too easy to fail or fall short of that.”

— Carrie Brownstein

Just invest in apps. Just download apps and then pay yourself the dividend.

— Carrie Brownstein

“It does feel great to be writing, but the process is sometimes excruciating.”

— Carrie Brownstein

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.

— Carrie Brownstein

It's very common to think that we're always evolving, that we've changed so much from our younger selves, that within decades we've transformed into these different people. We like to think that. I feel in some ways that I am still so much my younger self. There are ways that I'm different: I feel like I'm wiser and kinder. But I think a lot of the impulses are still the same. I learned that.

— Carrie Brownstein

“I've always been interested in queerness and underground and fringe and periphery, and who and what flourishes in those spaces. Those spaces that are darker and dingier and more dangerous, more lonely. What comes out of there, to me, is the life force. I'm excited when the center reaches over to those places and pulls inspiration from them, and translates it for a lot of people.”

— Carrie Brownstein

“I'm interested in the crevices, and the grotesque, and the unsavory. That started out when I was young. I've never quite been able to shake that.”

— Carrie Brownstein

To me, the grotesque is like a sonic manifestation of reality. I don't know how you could look out onto our world and see only beauty. And I like beautiful things. I like the aesthetically harmonious. But I am much more attracted to something that is off-kilter. It is a truer reflection of not only nature, but the human spirit - the state of the world. I just think everything feels a little off.

— Carrie Brownstein

“To be a fan is to be curious, and to be curious is to have openness. Part of being a fan is to allow 360 degress of experience - to immerse without judgment. It's like a really fearless step forward into new experience. There's something that feels very timeless about fandom.”

— Carrie Brownstein

“No matter what people are struggling with, or based on whatever. Sexuality, ethnicity, economic status, size. I don't wish smallness for anyone. It's a terrible place to live.”

— Carrie Brownstein

You do have to live through things, and to live through things is to observe want, and to observe lacking. Even if the hunger is a curiosity.

— Carrie Brownstein

“Twitter is sort of version of labeling, except with 140 characters instead of a labelmaker. It's the way of calling things out for what they are, wearing badges. Twitter is like the new Scarlet Letter.”

— Carrie Brownstein

Wholeness is sort of a dubious concept. Because in terms of the human body and literal wholeness and structures, you think: "here are the structures that help make me whole." Family, or school, or the city I live in. When those structures are dysfunctional or decaying, you end up kind of Frankensteining pieces from everywhere in order to make yourself sated and comfortable and alive.

— Carrie Brownstein

As a kid, before I got into music, I did all the drama classes, went to theater camp in the summers, so it wasn't totally a foreign world.

— Carrie Brownstein