David Bowie Quotes

Musician Quotes
And I mean amateur in that dedicated fashion you find in a man who, only on Sundays, will build a cathedral out of matchsticks, beautiful but only to please himself and his family and friends.

And I saw the sax line-up that he had behind him and I thought, I'm going to learn the saxophone. When I grow up, I'm going to play in his band. So I sort of persuaded my dad to get me a kind of a plastic saxophone on the hire purchase plan.

But I'm pretty good with collaborative thinking. I work well with other people.

But I've got to think of myself as the luckiest guy. Robert Johnson only had one album's worth of work as his legacy. That's all that life allowed him.

Frankly, I mean, sometimes the interpretations I've seen on some of the songs that I've written are a lot more interesting than the input that I put in.

Heathenism is a state of mind. You can take it that I'm referring to one who does not see his world. He has no mental light. He destroys almost unwittingly. He cannot feel any Gods presence in his life. He is the 21st century man.

However, there's no theme or concept behind Heathen, just a number of songs but somehow there is a thread that runs through it that is quite as strong as any of my thematic type albums.

I always had a repulsive need to be something more than human.

I believe that I often bring out the best in somebody's talents.

I don't believe in some force outside of ourselves that creates bad things. I just think of it as all dysfunctionalism of one kind of another.

I don't know where I'm going from here, but I promise it won't be boring.

I either get super euphoric or darkly depressive, misery being my default position. My soul flies erratically on the wings of what I would imagine is a feeble bi-polarism.

I felt I really wanted to back off from music completely and just work within the visual arts in some way. I started painting quite passionately at that time.

I had to resign myself, many years ago, that I'm not too articulate when it comes to explaining how I feel about things. But my music does it for me, it really does.

I never could get over the fact that The Pixies formed, worked and separated without America taking them to its heart or even recognizing their existence for the most part.

I think it all comes back to being very selfish as an artist. I mean, I really do just write and record what interests me and I do approach the stage shows in much the same way.

I think Mick Jagger would be astounded and amazed if he realized that to many people he is not a sex symbol, but a mother image.

I think the biggest frightener now is the disturbing lack of interest in... among a certain proportion of younger people, a lack of interest in... no curiosity in what's going on.

I tried passionately hard in the first part of the '80s to fit in, and I had my first overground success.

I wanted to prove the sustaining power of music.

I went through all the musicians in my life who I admire as bright, intelligent, virtuosic players.

I'm always amazed that people take what I say seriously. I don't even take what I am seriously.

I'm an instant star. Just add water and stir.

I'm just an individual who doesn't feel that I need to have somebody qualify my work in any particular way. I'm working for me.

I'm not a prophet or a stone aged man, just a mortal with potential of a superman. I'm living on.

I've never responded well to entrenched negative thinking.

It amazes me sometimes that even intelligent people will analyze a situation or make a judgement after only recognizing the standard or traditional structure of a piece.

It hadn't slipped my notice that I'd had more than a leaning toward pluralism in the '70s. I saw the proverbial two sides to every story, and that applied to music and religion and, I guess, politics.

Nearly all the synth work on Heathen is mine and some of the piano.

On the other hand, what I like my music to do to me is awaken the ghosts inside of me. Not the demons, you understand, but the ghosts.

Pixies and Sonic Youth were so important to the eighties.

Sometimes you stumble across a few chords that put you in a reflective place.

Strangely, some songs you really don't want to write.

The truth is of course is that there is no journey. We are arriving and departing all at the same time.

There, in the chords and melodies, is everything I want to say. The words just jolly it along. It's always been my way of expressing what for me is inexpressible by any other means.

To not be modest about it, you'll find that with only a couple of exceptions, most of the musicians that I've worked with have done their best work by far with me.

Tony Visconti and I had been wanting to work together again for a few years now. Both of us had fairly large commitments and for a long time we couldn't see a space in which we could get anything together.

We formed Tin Machine, which was possibly the best decision I ever made in terms of freeing myself from this cul-de-sac and decontextualizing myself. Once I had done Tin Machine, nobody could see me anymore.

What is very enlightening for me right now is that I sense that I'm arriving at a place of peace with my writing that I've never experienced before.

When Brian and I came back together this time, we found that we'd gone through very similar psychological states during the course of the '80s.

When I heard Little Richard, I mean, it just set my world on fire.

When you think about it, Adolf Hitler was the first pop star.

You can neither win nor lose if you don't run the race.
Musician Quotes