Top 479 Quotes & Sayings by David Bowie - Page 2

All Montreal bands have around nine members, I believe.

I'm responsible for starting a whole new school of pretension.

I cannot with any real integrity perform songs I've done for 25 years. I don't need the money. What I need is to feel that I am not letting myself down as an artist and that I still have something to contribute.

I've started doing book reviews for Barnes & Noble! They saw that I did a lot of book reviews on the site, and they figured that it might not be a bad thing if they got me to do some for them as well. I gave them five categories I'd be interested in reviewing, from art to fiction to music.

GYBE are among my, erm, two favourite Montreal bands, Arcade Fire being the other.

I rate Morrissey as one of the best lyricists in Britain. For me, he's up there with Bryan Ferry.

The humanists' replacement for religion: work really hard and somehow you'll either save yourself or you'll be immortal. Of course, that's a total joke, and our progress is nothing. There may be progress in technology but there's no ethical progress whatsoever.

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.

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.

All art really does is keep you focused on questions of humanity, and it really is about how do we get on with our maker.

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.

My mother was Catholic, my father was Protestant. There was always a debate going on at home - I think in those days we called them arguments - about who was right and who was wrong.

I've made over 25 studio albums, and I think probably I've made two real stinkers in my time, and some not-bad albums, and some really good albums. I'm proud of what I've done. In fact it's been a good ride.

I'm wallowing in the whole idea of just being a guy out there with a band, with songs. It's a real enjoyment.

I think Mustique is Duchampian - it will always provide an endless source of delight.

When I'm stuck for a closing to a lyric, I will drag out my last resort: overwhelming illogic.

I think in the '70s that there was a general feeling of chaos, a feeling that the idea of the '60s as 'ideal' was a misnomer. Nothing seemed ideal anymore. Everything seemed in-between.

I never thought I would be such a family-oriented guy; I didn't think that was part of my makeup. But somebody said that as you get older, you become the person you always should have been, and I feel that's happening to me.

Dance music is no longer a simple Donna Summer beat. It's become a whole language that I find fascinating and exciting. Eventually, it will lose the dance tag and join the fore of rock.

I feel confident imposing change on myself. It's a lot more fun progressing than looking back. That's why I need to throw curve balls.

I guess it's flattering that everyone believed I was those characters, but it also is dehumanizing.

Once I've written something it does tend to run away from me. I don't seem to have any part of it - it's no longer my piece of writing.

I wish myself to be a prop, if anything, for my songs. I want to be the vehicle for my songs. I would like to colour the material with as much visual expression as is necessary for that song.

The truest form of any form of revolutionary Left, whatever you want to call it, was Jack Kerouac, E.E. Cummings, & Ginsberg's period. Excuse me, but that's where it was at.

I'm rather kind of old school, thinking that when an artist does his work, it's no longer his... I just see what people make of it.

I was very into making the Big Artistic Statement - it had to be innovative; it had to be cutting edge. I was desperately keen on being original.

Funk, I don't think I have anything to do with funk. I've never considered myself funky.

I've never responded well to entrenched negative thinking.

I don't have stylistic loyalty. That's why people perceive me changing all the time. But there is a real continuity in my subject matter. As an artist of artifice, I do believe I have more integrity than any one of my contemporaries.

When it comes down to it, glam rock was all very amusing. At the time, it was funny, then a few years later it became sort of serious-looking and a bit foreboding.

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

It is amazing how a new child can refocus one's direction seconds after its birth.

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

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.

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

I think much has been made of this alter ego business. I mean, I actually stopped creating characters in 1975 - for albums, anyway.

I have all the admiration in the world for somebody like Bono, who really puts himself on the line and tries actively to do something about our world situation.

Songs don't have to be about going out on Saturday night and having a good rink-up and driving home and crashing cars. A lot of what I've done is about alienation... about where you fit in society.

Radio in England is nonexistent. It's very bad English use of a media system, typically English use.

I wanted to imbue Ziggy with real flesh and blood and muscle, and it was imperative that I find Ziggy and be him.

I wanted to be Gerry Mulligan, only, see, I didn't have any kind of technique. So I thought, well, baritone sax is kind of easier; I can manage that - except I couldn't afford a baritone, so I bought an alto, which was the same fingering.

I guess, taking away all the theatrics or the costuming and the outer layers of what I do, I'm a writer... I write.

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.

For me, often, there's such a cloud of melancholia about knowing I'm going to have to leave my daughter on her own. I don't know what age that is going to be, thank God. It just doubles me up in grief.

The Americans at heart are a pure and noble people; things to them are in black and white. It's either 'rawk' or it's not. We Brits putter around in the grey area.

You get to a certain age, and you are forbidden access. You're not going to get the kind of coverage that you would like in music magazines; you're not going to get played on radio, and you're not going to get played on television. I have to survive on word of mouth.

I'll tell you who I absolutely adore: Ian McEwan.

I would dream. I focused all my attention on going to America. The subculture, James Dean, the rock n' roll, the beat writers.

I never really felt like a rock singer or a rock star or whatever.

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

I'm not actually a very keen performer. I like putting shows together. I like putting events together. In fact, everything I do is about the conceptualizing and realization of a piece of work, whether it's the recording or the performance side.

Frankly, if I could get away with not having to perform, I'd be very happy. It's not my favorite thing to do.

Fame can take interesting men and thrust mediocrity upon them.

There's a schizoid streak within the family anyway so I dare say that I'm affected by that. The majority of the people in my family have been in some kind of mental institution, as for my brother he doesn't want to leave. He likes it very much.

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 don't profess to have music as my big wheel and there are a number of other things as important to me apart from music. Theatre and mime, for instance.

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.

I think, generally, I just cannot really envision life without writing and producing records and singing.

The name Zahra was to have been lman's own name at birth, but a senior member of the family changed it to lman at the last minute.

I'm in awe of the universe, but I don't necessarily believe there's an intelligence or agent behind it. I do have a passion for the visual in religious rituals, though, even though they may be completely empty and bereft of substance.