Top 353 Quotes & Sayings by Elton John - Page 5

You get the same equal rights that we do when we have a civil partnership. Heterosexual people get married. We can have civil partnerships.

Loneliness was tough, the toughest role you ever played. Hollywood created a superstar, and pain was the price you paid.

I saw you dancing out the ocean Running fast along the sand A spirit born of earth and water Fire flying from your hands

Getting paid for being laid, guess that's the name of the game.

Oh teacher, I need you like a little child, you got something in you to drive a school boy wild.

I don't want to be married. I'm very happy with a civil partnership. If gay people want to get married, or get together, they should have a civil partnership. The word 'marriage,' I think, puts a lot of people off. You get the same equal rights that we do when we have a civil partnership. Heterosexual people get married. We can have civil partnerships.

It's much too late to save myself from falling.

A great editor is the most valuable thing you can have as an artist because, as you said, sometimes you get too close to something. I think, apart from your talent, that's why you have the career you have - because you have great people behind you.

I love football, but I'm sick of the World Cup. I don't even care about England.

I want a love that don't mean a thing.

Top dog, top hat, move that muscle, move that fat.

I cannot bear successful people who are miserable.

The only thing the record companies put out now is 'Best of,'

I wasn't involved in anything. I wasn't out - you know, I know I wasn't in ACT UP. I wasn't with Larry Kramer. I wasn't by his side. I wasn't saying what I should do, because, by all accounts, I was a drug addict and an alcoholic. And I was living in a complete bubble of self-absorption.

It was Elvis that got me interested in music. I've been an Elvis fan since I was a kid.

People in England are so bloody nosy.

I don't think you can recreate anything from the past. You can not do it. If you're going to go out and imitate a Motown sound, you can't do it, it's impossible because of the studios and players involved and the atmosphere.

I'm cold as a razor blade, inches from madness.

It's getting late have you seen my mates, Ma tell me when the boys get here, It's seven o'clock and I want to rock, Want to get a belly full of beer...

I'm not everybody's cup of tea. But sometimes criticism can be hurtful. Be respectful I'm a good piano player, I can sing well, I write good songs. If you don't like it, fair enough. But give me a break.

Basically, I wanted redemption for the way I lived my life beforehand, and that was the drugs, the drink, the loose sex, whatever.

Don't show up around here until your social worker's helped.

I had a little Richard and that black piano, oh that sweet Georgia Peach, and the boy form Tupelo.

And the stigma hasn't really changed that much in 31 years. You are still getting people - it's a shame-based disease. It's based on sexual transmission. And it's still shame-based. And until people feel strong enough and feel loved enough to actually open up and say, listen, I'm HIV-positive, then we are facing an uphill battle.

It'll take you a couple of vodka and tonics to set you on your feet again.

If you don't understand hip-hop, you just have to see it being recorded.

In the '50s you weren't taught about sex whatsoever. It was never just talked about. People used to snoop behind their curtains and look at the neighbors. And if a girl became pregnant in your part of the world, she was shipped off to the countryside.

I've dodged so many bullets. Not just because of unsafe sex, but because of the amount of drugs I did, the amount of alcohol, the amount of work I was doing. I started the Elton John AIDS Foundation because I got so lucky.

This overload is edging me further out to sea, I need to put some distances between overkill and me.

I’ll not complain about your boring life, if you just leave me to mine

But until we get rid of that shame, then people are going to stay underground, they are not going to get tested, and we're facing an uphill battle [with AIDS].

But we came for the Kennedy Center Awards, which was an incredible honor. Being a British person, I was bestowed this honor. And my partner and I, David, came. And we were so pleasantly surprised by George Bush and his knowledge of AIDS. He really - he treated David and I - and Laura - treated us like - they were so friendly and so courteous.

You can call me a fat, balding, talentless old queen who can't sing, but you can't tell lies about me.

No tears to damn you when jealousy burns.

It was also great to have the Backstreet Boys appear on stage with me because I have gotten to know them all a little bit just recently, and not only are they great performers, but they also very hard working professionals and really nice guys.

You know, no one should be marginalized in society when it comes to health. And, you know, we have - as a foundation, we have tried to champion those people [sex workers, needle users, intravenous drug users, prostitutes] and be by - be by their side and say, listen, these people cannot be forgotten. If you forget about them, then the disease is never going to go away.

Well, we can't leave anyone behind just because they are sex workers or they are needle users, intravenous drug users, prostitutes.

I was ready to approach her with my English charm, when her brass knuckled boyfriend grabbed me by the arm.

I had progressed on stage as a performer, but I hadn't progressed as a human being.

Onstage, it was always comfortable for me, because that's where I felt at home. Offstage, it was a different situation. I was still shy offstage.

I lived my teenage years in my 20s when I sort of left home and became Elton John success, then it became Elton John excess... Everything I couldn't do when I was younger I did 10 times over. I was having the time of my life. I was becoming the person that I wanted to be.

He [Ryan white] spoke to me that my life was out of order. My life was a mess. I had no values anymore. And he was so stoic with his infection. He wasn't bitter. He wasn't angry. He just was a kid. He wanted to go to school and play football, drive his car. And he had no bitterness about him.

For me music is so passionate. I have to give it my all every time I go onstage.

If people are encouraged to come out and say they're HIV-positive and they're given their treatments, then obviously, the people who are marginalized - like intravenous drug users, prisoners, people are made to feel less-than - if they're given the support of the government, and they're given the funding, then it's going to help solve the spread of AIDS and HIV in America.

And these [pharmaceutical] companies are still threatening to sue. And it's like, you know, do you not have a conscience? Do you not want the world to be a better place? You're still making a profit. How much more of a profit do you want to make?

Cocaine made me talk forever. The most nonsensical rubbish that you could ever think of.

I'm not walking around the stage, I'm not moving.

When President Mbeki said, if you get AIDS, you can have a shower and it goes away. It's like, oh, come on. Or it's caused by poverty. We faced those kind of issues. But now, with the new regime, they have really woken up, paid attention. And when South Africa speaks, then the whole of Africa will listen. And I have got great hopes for that.

If you're stuck at piano and you're not a lead guitarist or a lead vocalist, you're kind of at a nine-foot plank then and you should do something about it.

I spent the last week of Ryan's life in Indiana, Indianapolis, with Jeanne and Andrea, Jeanne, his mother, Andrea, his sister, and some other beautiful people who came. And it taught me a lesson.

I was incredibly confident on stage because that's where I loved to be. But offstage, there was no balance. I was a little shy kid that went onstage. And I always said, cocaine was the drug that made me open up. I could talk to people. But then it became the drug that closed me down. So it started out by making me talk to everyone, and then ended up by me isolating myself alone with it; which is the end of the world, really.

But actually, my drug addiction thing, I was so stubborn.

And we have come so far like that. I mean, the advances on the medication side have been enormous, and the advances on the human side have been enormous. But we still have this stigma to get rid of, and then we really will be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

When we started, I was delivering meals to people in Atlanta. We were a direct-care organization. And it was - people needed meals, they needed transport, they needed medication, they needed buddy systems. They had a death sentence. There was AZT, and that was just prolonging the agony, basically. Now people, of course, if they are on antiretrovirals, they face a lifetime of health, basically. I mean, it doesn't - it's I would say in the 99 percent certainty bracket that if you are on that medication, you will have a healthy life.

And now South Africa has finally woken up and it is doing great things. And if South Africa becomes the template to what AIDS is in the sub-Saharan continent, then all the other countries are going to follow suit. And Michel Sidibe, who spoke at the breakfast meeting this morning, was saying that there is so much hope for Africa now that South Africa has got its house in order.

People still think of AIDS as a shame-based disease, it's a sexually transmitted disease, and you're either gay or you're a prostitute or an intravenous drug user. And so a lot of people are still very bigoted about this disease. It's such a treatable disease. It's so - the end is in sight for this disease, medically.

I'm still as fascinated with the music business as ever. I'd love to do an electronic album like Prodigy or Underworld. I really like that sort of music.

It took a child. It took a child with a blood transfusion not only to wake me up, but to wake America up, basically. I mean, I read about his plight in a doctor's office in New York in a magazine. I was so outraged about it that I contacted the family. We became friends. I helped them move to another place in Indiana. And we became constant friends.

I love to work. It fascinates me. And I love seeing who's coming up, who's got the charisma to last, who's got the intelligence to move on to other things. I'm so glad now that I'm stuck behind the piano, because when you're getting older it's very hard to waddle around the stage.

I was never told a thing about sex. So I was very naive, as were my friends as well. But I - me so especially.