Top 142 Quotes & Sayings by Phil Collins - Page 2

When I was five or six, I started dressing up like Davy Crockett.

There's no magic for getting into the groove... just banging away at it. Sometimes the lyrics come first, sometimes the music.

I never said I was at the Alamo. Someone else said I was at the Alamo. Now I'm a nutter. I don't think that's fair.

Genesis fans are a religious group!

If a musician dares to get out of the box he's been put in, people get confused. They want people where they can find them! I am fortunate in some respects as I've always been known as someone who 'moves around' and tries different things. But generally, we are supposed to stay where we're put.

There were 'big stars' at the Alamo! Bowie, Crockett! It is a huge political event because it, and the events at Goliad and San Jacinto, changed the look of a map of America. America would be a very different place if Texas had remained Mexican.

Originally, I thought the story of the Alamo was all these men defending their liberty when they could have left, knowing they were going to die. That's without a doubt what appealed to me, the romance and the nobility. But, as in life, the more you dig the more you find out that things weren't quite like that.

All I set out to do was to earn a living playing drums, you know? And as luck would have it, I've surpassed that.

The story of the Alamo has touched many more people than one would think. So, I would like to pay my respects to those men on both sides of the walls in those months of February and March 1836.

Prog rock, with a little good taste, is ok. I tried to bring some of it into this century, I guess.

When children see Michael Jackson they see a human being. When adults see him they see money.

When destiny calls you, you've got to be strong. I may not be with you, but you've got to move on.

This stupid sensitivity! But then women like sensitivity.

I'm glad that the lyrics reach people and make them understand that we're all the same, really.

Perception determines insanity.

If it's the beginning of something - like an album, I'm working on the lyrics and I take a walkman and headset.

Deep inside us we're not that different at all.

You'll regret the day you ever messed with Philadelphia Collins and sons

Would you respect me if I didn't have this gun? Cause without it, I don't get it, and that's why I carry one.

I've been a long-distance father.

The answer is inside your head; it's easy to find if you take it logically.

Take a look at me now, cause there's just an empty space. And you coming back to me is against all odds and that's what I've got to face.

I can't consider myself a drummer any more.

We're all turkeys! Some of us are running around with our heads cut off, some of us are flapping our wings that hard we're close to flying. But nothing is an eagle bar God.

I used to go to my local pub and it was like a sanctuary, nobody dared ask for an autograph. You went in there for a ploughman's and a pint, and you went home and watched TV. Believe me, there's more to watch on British TV than American, except for CNN right now. But yeah, I miss it.

To be honest, producing records interests me less at the moment and I really don't want to get involved in album projects that are going to take up a lot of time

As I've got older, I've got more understanding of relationships and how they work - but every single relationship has different dynamics, so you can't paint everyone with the same colour.

Testimony is contingent on experience, that's why we're all free spirits

Considering yourself selflessly selfish is a principle of all great thinkers

Find a way to my heart, and I will always be with you.

Before you write - remember that every speech has something of 'you' in the writing. Don't take that away when you write. Be yourself. Be comfortable in your own skin.

In learning you will teach, and in teaching you will learn.

You can wipe off that grin, I know where you've been, it's all been a pack of lies.

I grew up in the day when the Beatles sold 1 million singles in a week. And all you’ve got to do now is sell about 10,000 singles and you’re in the charts.

I wish I could just make you turn around, turn around and see me cry There's so much I need to say to you, so many reasons why You're the only one who really knew me at all So take a look at me now, 'cos there's just an empty space And there's nothing left here to remind me, just the memory of your face Take a look at me now, 'cos there's just an empty space And you coming back to me is against all odds and that's what I've got to face

Non-physicality may soon come to dominate our reality. Thanx Quatum Mechanics!

I remember flying with Air India to New York quite a few years ago now and I love Indian food, so the fact that I had a curry on board was fantastic.

I'm not sure at all about the current prog rock scene.

As I've gotten older and learned more, I realise that Hollywood has not told the truth.

I'm much happier just to write myself out of the script entirely.

The stereotypical rock-star-trashing-a-hotel-room thing? Those days had passed by the time I was in a band big enough to do it.

I feel terrible for women that have had Phil Collins tattoos. Their poor husbands have to deal with.

Believe it or not, Japanese is actually easier than some European languages!

There's something perverse isn't there, if you're playing in front of 100,000 people and there's 2000 people down the front who don't like, you think: what is it that they don't like?

Think twice; it's just another day for you and me in paradise.

Put your faith in what you most believe in.

Things happen, but things happen and you follow... your heart is too dramatic, but you follow.

To be honest, I couldn't hold a conversation with anybody in any language other than English - and that's a struggle sometimes!

I didn't become a commercially successful artist by design, and actually I think that commercially successful just means, if you analyse it, that a lot of people like you. It's become a dirty word, and I don't necessarily think it needs to be.

I think I was the best drummer!

The binding of reason and intuition is the fundamental crisis of the era we call humanity. Transcedence of duality is the key.

Catering on planes, like on British Rail, is a standing joke, but I don't really have a problem with it. I don't quite know what people expect.

When you're young you want to show people what you can do, no matter what the cost. Whereas when you're older, and you realise that maybe a drum machine is better than you playing, then use the drum machine.

As a writer, author, creator of something the fact that people are still interested, is fantastic.

Why did I like simpler songs? Just times change. This is one of the repeated things I hear: even though people will read different kinds of books, they don't read Lord of the Rings when they're 30 even though they did at 15.

I don't want to preach, but I really think the rudiments are very important to developing your drumming skills. Many of the patterns I've recorded came from things like paradiddles, flam paradiddles, flam triplets... They might be boring to sit down and practice, but not when you apply them to the drums.

Love can make you do things that you never thought possible

Wait for it, wait for it! Anticipation is half the fun, So I've been told...

I was talking to Australian press earlier, and they said: we never stopped playing you. I tended to forget about that. It brings a smile to your face that there is this continuing thing, that people like what you do.

Tattoos don't impress me. For me it's just another awkward part of fame. It's extraordinary - tattoos in basketball and soccer, it's quite extraordinary.