Top 166 Quotes & Sayings by Elvis Costello - Page 2

I became an altar boy because of the solemn face, but I got thrown out at fourteen for laughing. Because the priest used to mumble everything except the church plate takings.

The battle with the bottle is nothing so novel.

The people with the most resources are the federal government. If you can invade a country halfway across the world in a matter of days, you can surely come to the aid of your own citizens in a shorter order of time.

She said she was working for the ABC news, it was as much of the alphabet as she knew how to use.

[Commercial radio] is owned by one or two corporations now, and they're not in the music business. They're in the advertising business.... So let's not kid ourselves. If you want to hear music, go buy a guitar.

They say you better listen to the voice of reason But they don't give you any choice 'cause they think that it's treason. So you had better do as you are told. You better listen to the radio.

Somebody should clip Sting around the head and tell him to stop using that ridiculous Jamaican accent.

I'd be very suspicious of anybody that seems to have to move to the next level of expression. I distrust that: now I'm writing a book, now I'm being an actor. It should be a natural thing. I think it's a natural thing for you to act. But I think that people that feel that, because they've written one maybe quite beautiful love song that equips them to play Romeo, is probably misguided.

I mistrust these people in music industry who can be everybody. This is where technology dictates to them. I mistrust that, that in somehow the chips capture the soul of a player, that's patent nonsense.

It's the damage that we do and never know. It's the words that we don't say that scare me so.

History repeats the old conceits, the glib replies, the same defeats.

It's not crazy to want to have certain songs be developed harmonically and still want to make noise with the guitar. And you can have both.

There's no money back guarantee on future happiness.

Certain songs have been written years apart, but they have a natural continuity to my mind.

Nonsense prevails, modesty fails Grace and virtue turn into stupidity While the calendar fades almost all barricades to a pale compromise And our leaders have feasts on the backsides of beasts They still think they're the gods of antiquity If something you missed didn't even exist It was just an ideal is it such a surprise?

I'm drawing from two generations back how to think about music, how to think about why you travel to make music, what the possible pitfalls of that are for the way your life is structured. The good and bad of all of it get into the mix of what's created, what you're creating.

When you're working with the same band you kind of know their style inside out, and even when you've been working for seven years with the same people, suddenly they'll do something you didn't even think they were capable of.

I can write orchestrations, but I can't sight-read music and play at the same time. I don't have enough facility.

I started with rock n' roll and...then you start to take it apart like a child with a toy and you see there's blues and there's country...Then you go back from country into American music...and you end up in Scotland and Ireland eventually.

I knew I was in trouble, but I thought I was in hell.

The cost of living in sin would make a poor man out of Paul Getty.

Sleeping with forgiveness in your heart for me.

The radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools tryin' to anesthetize the way that you feel.

Don't start me talking, I could talk all night. My mind goes sleepwalking while I'm putting the world right.

The theme of exile is attractive to me, because it's sort of like the family business. Not just music, but travel.

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture - it's really a stupid thing to want to do.

Your mind is made up but your mouth is undone.

I've never had any real concern about posterity. I hope some people will be sorry when I'm not here, but I'm not playing for that.

Some people can't physically hear things. A kid that listens to Metallica or something can't hear that, because he's filled himself up with this stuff, he physically can't hear a banjo or a harp or something.

There are a lot of things that you can like at a distance without spending a huge amount of time pondering. It's not so complicated.

My grandfather and my father disagreed about music, not least of all because my dad wanted to improvise. It wasn't just that he wanted to play different music; it was just that he came off the dots.

Those days she was just a beautiful girl, now she's framed and hung up.

Don't try to touch my heart, it's darker than you think. And don't try to read my mind, because it's full of disappearing ink.

And I'm up while the dawn is breaking, even though my heart is aching. I should be drinking a toast to absent friends instead of these comedians.

My dad had a steady job with a really major dance band from '54 till '68, and then quit because he wanted to play different music. He wanted to sing about peace. He believed in these things.

When you work with new people, I think that it throws all of the matters into relief, because you have to explain yourself every time. It's like crossing a new border. They want to see your documents.

I feel like a juggler running out of hands.

Patsy Cline belongs shoulder-to-shoulder with Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald.

Anything that has to travel all the way down from your cerebellum to your fingertips, there's a lot of things that can happen on the journey. Sometimes I'll listen to records, my own stuff, and I think god, the original idea for this was so much better than the mutation that we arrived at.

My dad's father was a White Star Line trumpet player in the '20s. It shaped the way that I think about music. My grandfather was classically trained, military trained. He was an orphan who ended up in the Military School of Music in Kneller Hall.

Why can't a man stand alone? Must he be burdened by all that he's taught to consider his own? His skin and his station, his kin and his crown, his flag and his nation They just weigh him down

Oh I used to be disgusted and now I try to be amused. But since their wings have got rusted, you know, the angels wanna wear my red shoes.

It's the stupid details that my heart is breaking for.

You must hold on to the sort of finger-painting aspect of music. That's something I learned, particularly from listening to Neil Young. Tom Waits is another one, because Tom's music is incredibly sophisticated and beautifully arranged, but he's using a toolbox that's unlike anybody else's.

You can't live in the past, and I don't. I'm not nostalgic about my own work, at all.

The truth can't hurt you, it's just like the dark. It scares you witless, but in time you see things clear and stark.

Sometimes I write notes that I have difficulty singing. And you start talking yourself out of the bold melody and start wanting to arrange it in another key or something. Maybe I just never learned my harmony part, because what everybody says sounds odd to them sounds perfectly natural to me.

I'm not even sure what I want, but that's not the point - it's that I want it now.

The wages of sin are an expensive infection.

Morrissey writes wonderful song titles, but sadly he often forgets to write the song.

People speak with enormous pomposity and arrogance about music.

When they finally put you in the ground, I'll stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down.

There's so many people to see. So many people to check up on and add to your collection.

Funny, now I can see, how looks can be deceiving.

I'm just the mere shadow of my former selfishness. I crave the silhouette of your kiss.

I'm goin' to take a little trip, down paradise's endless shores. They say that travel broadens the mind, till you can't get your head out of doors.

The long arm of the law slides up the outskirts of town.

There are a few things that I regret, but nothing that I need to forget.

For all the courage that we never had, I'm just about glad.

I could promise that I'll always be true to you, but we may not live to be so old.