Top 101 Quotes & Sayings by Chris de Burgh - Page 2

I'd been to South Africa during the Seventies, when it was definitely not kosher to go there. I felt that the best thing to do was to be a missionary and tell people what was going on in their own country because censorship was so dreadful.

Before I ever did a stage concert, I'd done hundreds of living-room concerts, which helped a lot.

Most years, I do 70 or 80 concerts.

I think that every songwriter would give their right arm to come up with a standard that is going to be played long after they're dead.

I studied French and English literature because I liked it.

I can fix dishwashers. I was brought up in a castle with no money and lots of imagination. I learnt a lot about plumbing at an early age.

I'm very good to my wife. I never go home.

In an outdoor environment, you need to be more energetic. The attention of the crowd begins to wander - not like an indoor concert where the audience attention is riveted on to the stage.

A lot of people think they can become world stars overnight.

I was born in Argentina, and have lived in England, Ireland, Africa and Malta.

You get pigeonholed. It's a kind of safety device for people who don't really want to look any further outside of the box, but I'm actually impregnable as far as what people say about me.

I know journalists like to think that they are read by people like me, but I don't read them.

I'm not a big consumer at all. I'm very happy with enough.

I come from the school of thought that if you want to succeed and stay successful, you've got to put in the hard work at the beginning.

I can rock along with the best of them.

I struggled for so many years.

When I'm home I love to get the wellies on and take the dog for a walk.

After university, I set out to see if I could make a career in music. It was a tough journey at first, but by the time I was 23 I'd been signed by A&M Records.

When you have children, you almost feel like you've made your contribution to the survival of the human species. It's your way of passing the baton.

It's every songwriter's dream to come up with a standard.

I made loads of English and Irish friends at university and all they wanted to do was have a good time.

Americans are much easier to please than Canadians. The American taste is less critical. Canadians are more cultured, they are more aware of the arts than Americans.

I'm not a great meat eater - I eat it twice a week. But I can't stand fish - my mother says it's because I got a fish bone stuck in my throat when I was little.

When you're a solo artist and you're not doing well, it can be pretty tough. So when success does come, it feels like you've earned it.

I'm far more interested in putting a little more meat into the lyrics than some people are.

Every generation has to have its heroes.

Quite simply, to win Miss World is not a ticket to millions and I've read that so many times.

The relationship between parents and children who live together is a growing one, and it shifts every day, especially during the teenage years.

Philanthropy is never understood by those who don't have it in their own hearts.

I am happy in my own skin.

Vanity is not high on my list of priorities.

My mother was actually a breeder, believe it or not, and she used to name horses after some of my songs.

I've 300 other songs, but 'Lady In Red' is just one of them. Funnily enough, in America, it is massive, but most people wouldn't have a clue who Chris de Burgh was.

I regularly visualise my body from head to toe, and wait for it to tell me if there's anything wrong.

When I left university, I didn't want to jump into anything right away. Music certainly wasn't a burning ambition.

When I held my first album in my hands, I tell you, there were tears falling down my face. I thought 'This is it. I've arrived. I'm going to be an overnight world star.'

I've been travelling all my life.

I've been to Australia, Russia and many of places I wanted to see as a child. But I've never visited India. I've had many invitations to play there but it hasn't worked out. People say it's beautiful, but I think I'd react badly to the poverty.

Music was my first love, and at Marlborough we put bands together and sang the pop songs of the day. Although I couldn't read or write music - I still can't - I taught myself to play the guitar and piano by listening to songs and working out the chords.

I'm inspired to write songs in many different ways - it can come from a melody, a word or phrase or something I have seen on my travels around the world. It's one of the great bonuses of my job in that I get to meet so many people and experience different cultures and it would be hard not to be inspired.

There is an answer, some day we will know And you will ask her, why she had to go We live and die, we laugh and we cry You must take away the pain Before you can begin to live again