Top 181 Quotes & Sayings by Gene Simmons - Page 2

Never negotiate with kids. They don't have life experience, and they don't have repercussions for bad decisions; they still get fed and housed.

To be in a band on the road is to have anything and everything you want just by picking up the phone.

I'm from Israel, so America has no limits. I started a record label, and then I started managing other artists, like Liza Minelli.

If you think about it, critics are an unnecessary life-form on the planet Earth, and here's why: because it's a job without credentials. You don't have to go to school.

I do often fly first class, but I don't travel with a posse, or bodyguard, or an assistant.

If you win a race, you don't ask how you did it, as long as you do it.

In theater, you're playing characters. You believe you're somebody else, and you're acting.

The best you can do is set your kids on the right track; staying on it without falling is up to the kids.

I don't sleep all that much, but when I do, it's sound.

I worship scones and danishes. If I never had another meal, I wouldn't care as long as I could eat pastries and jelly doughnuts.

Don't believe bands who say it's all about the fans and they want to give their music away for free. The result is they will continue to live in their mother's basement.

When you are a rock star in front of 20,000 people, you receive instant gratification. A rock star on tour is a king in his domain.

Kiss is not a charity. Never, ever mix commerce and charity.

England is a profoundly bizarre place that has produced thousands of bands the world has worshipped.

I think it's pathetic that women and men treat each other worse than we treat our pets. It's love or hate.

I work for everything I've got. I started off as a very poor kid. I want to get paid.

I am an entrepreneur in the classic mold. No matter what I do - outside of sticking my tongue out - I tend to make money, and quite a bit in non-KISS stuff.

Before a show, you might have aches or pains, or it's a bad rainy day, or it's too humid. We all complain about stuff. But... how do I put this poetically? Once it's the roar of the crowd and the smell of the greasepaint, forget it. Once the adrenaline kicks in and your chest expands, you forget about all that.

Walk amongst the natives by day, but in your heart be Superman.

If you look at YOURSELF as the brand, then you will understand an intrinsic truth: People judge.

It's in the history books, the Holocaust. It's just a phrase. And the truth is it happened yesterday. It happened to my mother. I never met my grandfathers or my grandmothers. They were all wiped up in the gas chambers of Nazi Germany.

Most people are so busy living they neglect to take the time to ask why.

I voted for President Bush. I voted for President Clinton and although I do want my vote back, I voted for President Obama.

There’s an old adage that says that money is the root of all evil. Bullshit. Lack of money is the root of all evil.

Anybody who picks up a guitar and tells you that there's some inner message that they're trying to convey... it's nonsense. They're not being honest. The reason they're doing this is they wanna get lots of chicks and they don't want to work for a living.

Our job is to leave the world a little better than we found it. Not the same... not worse... better.

The problem you ultimately want to have, as an entrepreneur, is deciding who to help, not deciding who can help you.

Men want success and sex. Women want everything.

There are no limitations to any of our dreams.

Our perception of yesterday is the foundation for our expectations of tomorrow.

You always start off with passion and the people that have it.

Let's say you're a garage mechanic, and you have big dreams about opening up your own chain of branded garages around the country. Terrific.

After 9/11, people all of a sudden became patriotic and showed the colors. Why did it take something bad to happen? It means something. People have died for it, and continue to do so.

If a vacuum cleaner salesman rings your front door, he will be selling HIMSELF first. The vacuum cleaner is secondary.

Rock stars are idiots. You know that! Remember this moron never went to music school, never learned music theory and can't read or write music. So why not be suspicious of everything this idiot says?

My hero is me. Why? Because I was a poor little kid who was told, `Hey stupid, can`t you speak English?` Now all those people work for me. Despite whatever circumstances I came across, I was always able to rise to the top and there`s only one way to do that - by being selfish, but also by believing in yourself. Belief is self-knowing. Even Yoda out of Star Wars said, `Do or do not. There is no try.

What we have is pretty meaningless. It's what we are that counts.

No one has the right to shake his finger in your face.

If you want to welcome me with open arms, I'm afraid you're also going to have to welcome me with open legs.

If you choose to become a smoker, you are an idiot, and you may lack the discipline and intelligence to be a successful entrepreneur.

Kiss is the number-one American band in gold-record sales. In the world, only the Beatles and the Stones are ahead of us. Every other band should be wiping my ass. The line forms over there to the left.

The most important word in American, in Western culture, is "I."

I think that Shakespeare is a s***. Absolute s***! He may have been a genius for his time, but I just can't relate to that stuff. "Thee and thous" - the guy sounds like a faggot.

Before you go out there and try to conquer the universe... get your act together.

Believe me, the library is the temple of God. Education is the most sacred religion of all.

It is really sad for the new artists. Where's the next Elvis, where's the next Beatles, where's the Zeppelin? They're out there but they don't have a chance because once upon a time we [musicians of the 60s] had record companies, and they would support you and have point of purchase material and they would give you advances. In other words, they gave you the air to breathe to find yourself and spend the time to learn how to run.

Trees acquire strength by growing slowly and flexing with the pressures of nature. Us too.

Education, especially business education will only give you tools. What you do with these tools is all that matters. Life and business isn’t paint by numbers. You have to think for yourself. You have to invent yourself. You have an inferred fiduciary mandate to yourself, and that means, it’s your responsibility to learn people skills, and language skills, in order to increase your chances of success. You also have to be at the right place, at the right time, with the right thing. Mostly and invariably, the real product you’re going to be selling is….you.

When I meet a woman, I don't think, 'Gee, I wonder if she's read the latest thesis by Stephen Hawking? I think, 'Great tits.'

There are many really stupid ideas that wind up being brilliant, if you can implement them.

The death of rock was not a natural death. Rock did not die of old age. It was murdered.

It's easy to be drowned out by the crowd, but to thine own self be true, say I, no matter what everybody says, no matter what the popular vibe is.

Get rid of the friends who want you to spend your whole day doing nothing with them. They're not your friends. They're your enemies.

You have to understand that nothing appeals to everybody.

Anyone who tells you they got into rock'n'roll for reasons other than girls, fame and money is full of s***.

Music is the only industry where you don't need to know what you're doing to get ahead. Well, that and politics.

Belief is self-knowing. Even Yoda out of Star Wars said, 'Do or do not. There is no try.'

It's hard to see your destination when you're focused on the cracks in the sidewalk.

I love money, I love women, I like to work hard and I don't use drugs.

Women, you have all this power, I'm telling you. In business, you have something called an inferred fiduciary duty to yourself. Look at the other hugely successful women in industry, commerce, science and everywhere else and you'll see women who are feminine, beautiful but also do not rely on men for their self-empowerment.