Top 89 Cobain Quotes & Sayings

There will always be some kid who's the new Kurt Cobain writing great lyrics and singing from his soul. The problem is they're not marketing that anymore or putting it out there.

Whenever people hear that Kurt Cobain was a fan of my standup, it's like hearing Jimi Hendrix loved Buddy Hackett or something.

We remember Kurt Cobain for what he was: Caring, generous, and sweet. Let's keep the music with us. We'll always have it.

People looked to Kurt Cobain because his songs captured what they felt before they knew they felt it.

I'm like part of the Kurt Cobain school of writing lyrics, which is the syntax of the words is more important than... is where it all comes from.

I'd love to be the new Kurt Cobain.

I like Kurt Cobain. [He] is like my dream boyfriend.

I just didn't really relate to Kurt Cobain. There was nothing very glamorous about him.

I was doing that [a collaboration with Kurt Cobain] to try to save his life. The collaboration was me calling up as an excuse to reach out to this guy. He was in a really bad place.

Pop should be weird, and I realize as I say this that I'm not the weirdest person in the world. But if that means a girl sounding like Kylie Minogue and looking like Kurt Cobain, then so be it.

I've never had access to another person's art and work or, particularly, someone who is as prolific and was able to externalize his interior world as deeply as Kurt [Cobain] could.

How is it possible that Courtney Love looks worse than Kurt Cobain?

When I was just straight-up rapping, I feel like everyone wasn't paying attention as much, but the moment I started singing - case in point, 'Clout Cobain' - it affected more people.

You think about people like Elvis, Kurt Cobain, or the Beatles, who grew up without privilege and needed a certain validation through peoples' acceptance, or admiration from their peers. And money is part of that, but it always comes too late.

Kurt [Cobain ]was a feminist. A lot of the bashing against Courtney [Love] I think has to deal with gender bias and the media, and I think that he liked that she was taking the attention off of him.

I don't feel like I'm half as important as Elliott Smith or Kurt Cobain. And I'm not going to be somebody that became so unhappy that he succumbed.

I never really knew about my ancestors until this year, when I learned that the name Cobain was Irish. My parents had never bothered to find that stuff out.

Bands like Nirvana had theatrical sensibilities, playing with image, challenging assumptions people were making about them, the apex being Kurt Cobain in a dress to make a point.

I don't think of Kurt as 'Kurt Cobain from Nirvana'. I think of him as 'Kurt'. It's something that comes back all the time. Almost every day.

I always thought Kurt Cobain was the perfect embodiment of the great alternative guitar player.

I don't wanna be Courtney Love - I wanna be Kurt Cobain.

I'm really into, like, characters - music characters like Sid Vicious and Kurt Cobain - just, like, how they are and stuff. Like Lil Wayne.

I feel like the Kurt Cobain of my generation, but people just don't understand me.

Two of my biggest musical inspirations are Kurt Cobain and Chris Cornell.

Kurt Cobain was, ladies and gentleman, I just - he was a worthless shred of human debris.

Kurt Cobain OD'd on heroin before committing suicide, but he also OD'd on fame. Cobain was like Basquiat: They both wanted to be famous, and were brilliant enough to make it happen. But then what? Drug addicts kill themselves trying to get that feeling they got from their first high, looking for an experience they'll never get again. In his suicide note, Cobain asked himself, "Why don't you just enjoy it?" and then answered, "I don't know!" It's amazing how much of a mindfuck success can be.

It had a huge impact on me, ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ – and I was very proud when I found out that Kurt Cobain was a fan of mine. I thought he was awesome.

Kurt Cobain represents a very legit, realistic outlook. Before that, in my head, to be a white artist was to be privileged.

Eminem is like a God to me. Besides that, Kurt Cobain has been my evergreen musical guru.

[Kurt Cobain] had a lot of German in him. Some Irish. But no Jew. I think that if he had had a little Jew he would have [expletive] stuck it out.

I saw Frances Bean at a Blink 182 show. And she was with a guy who looked just like Kurt Cobain.

I'm a big fan of Kurt Cobain. I put a picture of him holding a gun on my Instagram for his birthday. He's definitely one of my favorite rock artists.

I didn't know Kurt Cobain or Amy Winehouse, but I was affected by both of their deaths because I admired their work so much and mourned their youth and work they would never produce.

If I was 13 years old and Kurt Cobain tweeted me some advice or even just said hi, my whole world would be affected by that.

I think Kurt Cobain and Nirvana represent this giant wave that came crashing in and turned music on its head again, and there's definitely something to be said for that.

Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love talked trash about the fact that I hooped. I once stopped to say 'Hi' before a show, and as I walked away, Courtney yelled, 'Go play basketball with Dave Grohl!'

And for him [Kurt Cobain] to do that [suicide] - I didn't like that. I thought that was just wrong. It just sent a bad message to a troubled generation.

You don't have to come from Trinidad to really love Harry Belafonte, you don't have to come from the West Coast to appreciate the simplicity and the beauty of the songs Kurt Cobain wrote.

Kanye West talks about being Axl Rose, being Kurt Cobain, being Jim Morrison. Adam Levine is selling acne ointment to teenagers.

Kurt Cobain really made an impression on us. He just had that rebel attitude. You could tell he was super talented but didn't really care.

If Nirvana had remained a small, underground punk rock band, Kurt Cobain would still be alive. And he'd probably be living in Seattle, getting kind of fat and balding, be relatively happy and producing records for other people.

Growing up, I was so inspired by front men like Mick Jagger, Freddie Mercury, and Kurt Cobain - real showmen that put on 'a performance' every time they walk out on stage - so it's important for me to feel like I deliver that.

I think my heart always goes out to men at the peak of their celebrity who checked out. There's such an odd, horrible trend in my lifetime for it - Kurt Cobain, David Foster Wallace, Alexander McQueen, Heath Ledger.

I think love could have saved Kurt Cobain.

We're kind of like the Kurt Cobain of country music in a way.

Stephen Hawking: Brainier than Kurt Cobain's garage wall.

I never met Kurt Cobain, but I felt like I got to know him in a manner probably more intimate than anyone I've known outside of my family.

I like strong/vulnerable interesting women, and then sometimes I like painting beautiful men, like Kurt Cobain, or Mr Darcy.

Cobain the writer is funny and self-aware and snotty with a knack for off-the-cuff profundity. Remarking to a friend that his band will be called 'Nirvana,' he scribbles next to it the words 'Oooh eerie mystical doom.'

The rock era, as I clock it, went from '65 to '94, from 'Like a Rolling Stone' to Kurt Cobain's death.

Kurt Cobain was Nirvana. He named the band, hired its members, played guitar, wrote the songs, fronted the band onstage and in interviews, and took responsibility for the band's business decisions.

I've studied several guitar players and songwriters, mostly from Al di Meola to Dimebag Darrell, from Freddie Mercury of Queen to Kurt Cobain of Nirvana and Bradley Nowell of Sublime.

With 'Clout Cobain,' when I made the song, I knew what I wanted to say. But I was gonna say it in a way where people could understand it.

You have Kurt [Cobain], and he's singing about your experiences. They're our collective experiences.

Kurt Cobain, when he did his videos, you look into his eyes and he couldn't even face the camera; he was in pain and I'm angry about Kurt. This guy didn't have to die.

I'm a different person. I don't want to be titled as Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain's daughter. I want to be thought of as Frances Cobain.

The perception of him as brooding and dark and miserable, that is baloney. Kurt Cobain was a funny dude.

Everybody feels protective and possessive about Kurt [Cobain] , and I think that can be attributed to his unique gift, an ability to touch our lives, and make us feel like he's our friend.

Kurt Cobain is one of the reasons I started doing music because I just loved to watch them rock out.

Music is really important to me; Kurt Cobain is important to me. Hearing Nirvana was pretty life-changing.