Creativity Quote by Thurston Moore

Moore’s offhand dismissal lands like a punk-era shrug aimed straight at the machinery that tries to turn art into inventory. The line is studiously unglamorous: no grand manifesto, just a blunt refusal to let “sell these things” become the organizing principle of a creative life. That casualness is the point. It’s the sound of someone who’s watched commerce creep into every corner of music culture and decided that the only sane response is to starve it of oxygen.

The phrasing matters. “I don’t really care” isn’t a saintly renunciation; it’s impatience. Moore isn’t arguing that money is evil, he’s rejecting the anxious, managerial mindset behind “Oh I really have to…” That little “Oh” mimics an internal voice - the label rep, the marketing plan, the algorithm - trying to install urgency where he doesn’t feel it. He’s naming the psychic tax of promotion: the way selling forces artists to perform enthusiasm for their own commodification.

In context, it tracks with Sonic Youth’s long-standing tightrope act: operating near major-label ecosystems while insisting on underground values, treating noise, experimentation, and difficulty as features, not bugs. The subtext is a defense of artistic tempo. Sales culture demands clarity, consistency, product; Moore’s world thrives on friction, detours, and the freedom to fail in public. The quote doesn’t just reject selling. It rejects the idea that the market gets to set the stakes.