Citater

Before you judge me, try hard to love me, look within your heart.
Then ask; have you seen my childhood ?

— Michael Jackson

I’m kidding about having only a few dollars. I might have a few dollars more.

— James Brown

We’d be nowhere without our looks.

— Chris Lowe (Pet Shop Boys)

If all of the people in Hollywood had plastic surgery and went on vacation, there wouldn’t be a person left in town.

— Michael Jackson

You’re full of insecurities in your 20s – most of the time your heart’s being broken, you’re having a difficult time finding out who the hell you are, and I was trying to do that in the full glare of the public.

— Kim Wilde

It was a really interesting time in New York in the late 70s and early 80s, and the music scene was really, really interesting because you didn’t have to be a virtuoso to make music, it was more about your desire to express things.

— Jim Jarmusch

I’m not bad. I’m just drawn that way.

— Jessica Rabbit (Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, 1988)

I’d like to be known for more than being the guy in the big suit.

— David Byrne (Talking Heads)

If you hand me a guitar, I’ll play the blues. That’s the place I automatically go.

— Eric Clapton

I won’t be a rock star. I will be a legend.

— Freddie Mercury (Queen)

Love Comes Quickly is our favourite record ever, and it did really badly.

— Chris Lowe (Pet Shop Boys)

I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise it won’t be boring.

— David Bowie

Sometimes you struggle so hard to feed your family one way, you forget to feed them the other way, with spiritual nourishment. Everybody needs that.

— James Brown

Composing music is hard work.

— John Williams

I might have to go on breakfast TV, which would mean getting up early.

— Nik Kershaw

Here’s Johnny!

— Jack Torrance (The Shining, 1980)

I keep telling people: Don’t make me the poster boy for AA because I don’t know a lot about sobriety, but I do know a lot about drinking.

— Billy Joel

What happened to truth? Did it go out of style?

— Michael Jackson

I dress to kill, but tastefully.

— Freddie Mercury (Queen)

All things must pass.

— George Harrison

When I’m hungry, I eat. When I’m thirsty, I drink. When I feel like saying something, I say it.

— Madonna

Greatness occurs when your children love you, when your critics respect you and when you have peace of mind.

— Quincy Jones

I hope that on my tombstone it says ‘Born 1933, died 2043.’ I hope that’s my legacy.

— Quincy Jones

I love it when someone insults me. That means that I don’t have to be nice anymore.

— Billy Idol

The pin-up thing took us completely by surprise. I found it hard because I got singled out, and I didn’t like it. There was a lot of disillusionment.

— Morten Harket (A-ha)

We wanted to come to London because it’s the hardest place to make it.

— Morten Harket (A-ha)

There can be only one.

— MacLeod (Highlander, 1986)

You should never take more than you give.

— Elton John

It’s always about the music, never about anything else.

— Eddie Van Halen

I think my melodies are superior to my lyrics.

— Freddie Mercury (Queen)

After the first album, Meat just lost it completely. “GRUNT! GRUNT! GRUNT! GRUNT!” I had to listen to that for nine months. That pig can’t sing a fucking note.

— Jim Steinmann (Meat Loaf’s producer)

You shouldn’t be in the music business if you’re posing.

— Rod Stewart

We’ve done an arrangement with an orchestra, but I think the best stuff tends to come when it’s just the four of us.

— Brian May (Queen)

There is no such thing as a reluctant star.

— George Michael

Everyone who did not arrive on a private jet put your hands in the air.

— Simon Le Bon (Duran Duran)

I’ll be back.

— The Terminator (The Terminator, 1984)

I mean, the sound of an amplified guitar in a room full of people was so hypnotic and addictive to me, that I could cross any kind of border to get on there.

— Eric Clapton

I grew up playing in clubs – that’s my spiritual stomping ground.

— Eric Clapton

There’s nothing I’m embarrassed about.

— Brian May (Queen)

If everyone who had a gun just shot themselves, there wouldn’t be a problem.

— George Harrison

I’m starting with the man in the mirror.

— Michael Jackson

Welcome to the world of bullshit, my dear. You have arrived.

— Elton John

Everyone probably thinks that I’m a raving nymphomaniac, that I have an insatiable sexual appetite, when the truth is I’d rather read a book.

— Madonna

One of the most beneficial things I’ve ever learned is how to keep my mouth shut.

— Eric Clapton

One more hit and we’re the most successful girl group of all time. We’ll pass The Supremes. Sad, isn’t it?

— Sara Dallin (Bananarama)

I don’t mean to sound big-headed but I honestly don’t think we’ve put a foot wrong in 20 years.

— Mike Rutherford (Genesis)

80s music sounds so 80s now. But in the 80s, it just sounded like music.

— Jeffrey Tucker

You make your mistakes to learn how to get to the good stuff.

— Quincy Jones

For us you have to make peace with that song because it’s stronger than you in a way. It’s not going away.

— Morten Harket (A-ha)

We’d have made more, but I kept forgetting to write songs down.

— Chris Lowe (Pet Shop Boys)

It was the case in the 70s and 80s that people believed music could change the world. But now people aren’t making music because they want to change the world; they’re making music because they want to just make a ton of money.

— Sinead O’connor

I do not deny that all Modern Talking hits sound very, very similar. We have always decoupled those tracks from our LPs as singles that sound as similar as possible to their predecessors.

— Dieter Bohlen (Modern Talking)

Everything in moderation – that’s what I live by.

— David Gilmour (Pink Floyd)

Everybody got it wrong. I said I was into porn again, not born again.

— Billy Idol

It’s fundamental that what we do only exists in our own universe. When you like Pet Shop Boys, you are in our world.

— Neil Tennant (Pet SHop Boys)

Women rule the world and no man has ever done anything that a woman either hasn’t allowed him to do or encouraged him to do.

— Bob Dylan

We live in ugly times.

— David Byrne (Talking Heads)

To give someone a piece of your heart, is worth more than all the wealth in the world.

— Michael Jackson

Chart positions aren’t the be all and end all.

— Chris Lowe (Pet Shop Boys)

The Heads were the only band on that scene that had a groove.

— David Byrne (Talking Heads)

Dying is easy, it’s living that scares me to death.

— Annie Lennox

Playing the game, and unfortunately, playing the gangster game is very profitable.

— Quincy Jones

I would like to be able to do a song with Ray Charles, before we both get too old.

— Joe Cocker

Over the years, I’ve worked with just about everybody.

— Joe Cocker

Interview? Oh don’t be ridiculous.

— Freddie Mercury (Queen)

We didn’t feel we fitted into the ’80s.

— Morten Harket (A-ha)

They drew first blood, not me.

— John Rambo (First Blood, 1982)

Bob is Bob and he always will be. And that’s why he’s Bob.

— Jeff Lynne (sagt om Bob Dylan)

I really wanted the first record to be different from what I’d done with Genesis, so we were trying to do things in different styles.

— Peter Gabriel

I’m as gay as a daffodil, my dear!

— Freddie Mercury (Queen)

You have the sun, you have the moon, you have the air that you breathe – and you have the Rolling Stones!

— Keith Richards (Rolling Stones)

I think the only thing I would’ve ever been any good at was probably being a pub landlord. I’ve thought of that a couple of times.

— Joe Cocker

I like to be surrounded by splendid things.

— Freddie Mercury (Queen)

Music is forever; music should grow and mature with you, following you right on up until you die.

— Paul Simon

I do love beauty. I love beautiful tilings. I grow orchids and collect butterflies. But when it comes to relationships, you have to find the person inside.

— Morten Harket (A-ha)

I used to jog but the ice cubes kept falling out of my glass.

— David Lee Roth (Van Halen)

If someone really wants to hurt you, they’ll find a way whatever. I don’t want to live my life worrying about it.

— George Michael

Whoever invented God is an idiot. God is absolutely man’s worst invention.

— Chris Lowe (Pet Shop Boys)

When I started out, everyone seemed to be adopting these names… Johnny Rotten, Sid Vicious. I wasn’t really Rotten or Vicious or Nasty, so I wanted something a bit more funny – yet something that seemed real rock ‘n’ roll… something that acknowledged my ambition.

— Billy Idol

“Men want success and sex. Women want everything.”
Women

— Gene Simmons (Kiss)

Feed me, Seymour!

— Audrey II (Little Shop of Horrors, 1986)

Avant Garde is French for bullshit.

— George Harrison

I’ve just always been like this slowhand…like the arthritic guitar method.

— George Harrison

We knew we would make it and become very big.

— Morten Harket (A-ha)

When I say I don’t have to write pop songs anymore, there’s no way I’m going to get on the radio at 60 years of age unless I’m doing a duet with Gaga or I was on ‘All of the Lights,’ which was a Kanye West record that managed to get on the radio.

— Elton John

They wouldn’t play my records on American radio because I had spiky hair. They said, ‘Punk rock doesn’t sell advertising, it won’t make any money.’

— Billy Idol

I’d put a lot of work into playing guitar and was thinking I was pretty damn good. But Hendrix came along and destroyed everyone.

— Brian May (Queen)

We’re a bit flashy, but the music’s not one big noise.

— Freddie Mercury (Queen)

I think to be a good songwriter, you have to be able to play an instrument.

— Joe Cocker

I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints.

— Billy Joel

If you want to find somebody and you want to be married and you want to have children, don’t make it a rock star.

— Stevie Nicks (Fleetwood Mac)

Yippee-ki-yay, mother fucker!

— John McClane (Die Hard, 1988)

More than art, more than literature, music is universally accessible.

— Billy Joel

You need a bit more to be a pop star than just a good voice.

— Kim Wilde

Women are from Mars, men have a penis

— Gene Simmons (Kiss)

I’m not a prophet or a stone aged man, just a mortal with potential of a superman. I’m living on.

— David Bowie

I will go out of my way to avoid the shopping crowds and the extreme consumerism – I hate all that.

— Annie Lennox

The music scene as I look at it today is a little different from when I was growing up. The percentages are roughly the same – 95 percent rubbish, 5 percent pure.

— Eric Clapton

No, I am your father.

— Darth Vader (Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, 1980)

“I’m not conceited. Conceit is a fault and I have no faults.”

— David Lee Roth (Van Halen)

Using music to promote hate seems to be the bastardisation of music to me.

— Chris Lowe (Pet Shop Boys)

A star can never die. It just turns into a smile and melts back into the cosmic music, the dance of life.

— Michael Jackson

Roads? Where we’re going we don’t need… Roads!

— Emmett “Doc” Brown (Back to the Future, 1985)

If you closed your eyes you would swear it was Ray Charles. Musically he was like an old man in a boy’s skin.

— Eric Clapton (om Steve Winwood)

I was not going to be a stupid girl singer. I was going to be way more than that.

— Stevie Nicks (Fleetwood Mac)

God, I’m just a fat bald guy, 60 years old, singing the blues, you know?

— Joe Cocker

The worst thing you can do to a child, and I’ve seen it happen so many times, is the silver spoon.

— Elton John

True genius does not fulfill expectations. True genius shatters it.

— Paula Abdul

I’ve always thought that a big laugh is a really loud noise from the soul saying “Ain’t that the truth”.

— Quincy Jones

The music industry is a matrix that is counter to what is natural and right.

— Prince

What we were trying to do differently was this sort of layered sound.

— Brian May (Queen)

The record company really pissed me off when they told me to lose weight. I couldn’t be bothered with looking a certain way. So I left the business. I don’t regret it.

— Kim Wilde

Nobody puts Baby in a corner.

— Johnny Castle (Dirty Dancing, 1987)

Have you listened to the radio lately? Have you heard the canned, frozen and processed product being dished up to the world as American popular music today?

— Billy Joel

Shameless self-publicity works, of course: living your life as a soap opera.

— Chris Lowe (Pet Shop Boys)

Honor your mistake as a hidden intention.

— Brian Eno

Nowadays New-York is not the exciting place it used to be. It still has great energy; I still put my finger in the socket. But it doesn’t feel alive, cracking with that synergy between the art world and music world and fashion world that was happening in the 80s. A lot of people died.

— Madonna

You’ll never find peace of mind until you listen to your heart.

— George Michael

My attitude is if fashion says it’s forbidden, I’m going to do it.

— Michael Jackson

We competed against each other for the sexiest girls. And, I won!

— Simon Le Bon (Duran Duran)

You want a hero in the music world? James Brown. He brought a feeling to music without really using words. He’s just famous for his sound.

— David Lee Roth (Van Halen)

My music is about a joyful experience. I’ve learned that if you can affect other people, you should.

— Cyndi Lauper

My whole career was launched in such sort of poptastic style with ‘Kids In America’, and I liked – and like – being poptastic. Songs big on melody, high on energy, lots of attitude… what’s wrong with that?

— Kim Wilde

Does it mean this, does it mean that, that’s all anybody wants to know. I’d say what any decent poet would say if anyone dared ask him to analyze his work: if you see it, darling, then it’s there!

— Freddie Mercury (Queen)

Music can change the world because it can change people.

— Bono (U2)

When I was I younger I didn’t want to be gay. Not because I was scared of the sexual thing; I didn’t want to be a clone. Now this was in the late ’70s.

— Neil Tennant (Pet SHop Boys)

I’ve been touring now since about ’68.

— Joe Cocker

Ha, ha, ha. That’s not a knife. That’s a knife!

— Mike Dundee (Crocodile Dundee, 1986)

When I was 14, I would sit up in my room and write till my eyes would bleed.

— Quincy Jones

Oh, I was not made for heaven. No, I don’t want to go to heaven. Hell is much better. Think of all the interesting people you’re going to meet down there!

— Freddie Mercury (Queen)

I’d spend all my time in the nightclubs, or in my bedroom bonking

— Simon Le Bon (Duran Duran)

Queen has always been my favorite band. Freddie is the greatest singer, ever, is the way I look at it. The other thing about Queen for me is they embraced so many different styles.

— Axl Rose (Guns n’ Roses)

I met Ray Charles at 14, and he was 16. But he was like a hundred years older than me.

— Quincy Jones

When you produce an album, you’re dealing with it theatrically. It has to have a structure, and the inner response to that is that the ear loves it.

— Quincy Jones

I do like my rock stars to be a little larger than life. I don’t mind the earnest ones at all, but I do like a bit of individuality.

— Elton John

E.T. phone home.

— E. T. (E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, 1982)

I’m not a person for sitting on beaches. What would I do?

— Brian May (Queen)

When I was a tiny tot, we only had one record player in the house, so there was either Genesis on it or the Jungle Book or The Beatles as well, and various other things.

— Rick Astley

It’s good to be the king.

— King Louis XVI (History of the World, Part 1, 1981)

The first Velvet Underground album only sold 10.000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band.

— Brian Eno

I absolutely refuse to reveal my age. What am I – a car?

— Cyndi Lauper

I just play intuitively and work the same way in the studio. I don’t have any magical effects or anything that helps me to get my particular sound.

— David Gilmour (Pink Floyd)

Man, I have had so much plastic surgery, I don’t even recognize myself, sometimes. If I catch a glimpse in a window or something, I think it is someone else.

— Vince Neil (Mötley Crüe)

Music is everybody’s possession. It’s only publishers who think that people own it.

— John Lennon

Artists are notoriously snooty and suspicious of anything coming from the business community.

— David Byrne (Talking Heads)

I believe I’m one of the loneliest people in the world.

— Michael Jackson

‘You Are So Beautiful,’ I think, is probably the, you know, the strongest tune I ever did in just the simplicity in it.

— Joe Cocker

I have never thought about my sexuality being right or wrong. To me it has always been a case of finding the right person.

— George Michael

For me there is something primitively soothing about this music, and it went straight to my nervous system, making me feel ten feet tall.

— Eric Clapton

I grew up on radio, not TV.

— David Lee Roth (Van Halen)

Cycling can be lonely, but in a good way. It gives you a moment to breathe and think, and get away from what you’re working on.

— David Byrne (Talking Heads)

We wouldn’t have put it out with the name Queen on it if we didn’t think it was musically up to scratch.

— Brian May (Queen)

Secretly, I wanted to look like Jimi Hendrix, but I could never quite pull it off.

— Bryan Ferry

The bigger the better; in everything.

— Freddie Mercury (Queen)

Where words fail, music speaks.

— Hans Christian Andersen

The music is all. People should die for it. People are dying for everything else, so why not the music?

— Lou Reed

Music has healing power. It has the ability to take people out of themselves for a few hours.

— Elton John

In me soul, I’m gentle.

— Joe Cocker

My hair used to be real long, and my parents were encouraged when I cut it. They thought I was going ‘straight,’ but I was just getting weirder – at least in their eyes. I was getting into the punk thing.

— Billy Idol

If I could, I’d be a recluse. I do want to be one. I’m trying really hard. But it’s a difficult thing to pull off in this job.

— Chris Lowe (Pet Shop Boys)

I’ve smoked so much pot I’m surprised I haven’t turned into a bush.

— Joe Strummer (The Clash)

I tried several times to get the song right. The tune and the chords that I started with, there really wasn’t anywhere else it could go. I stopped fighting it and let it take me away.

— Nik Kershaw

Money is a good thing and it’s obviously useful, but to work only for money or fame would never interest me.

— Annie Lennox

I don’t think punk ever really dies, because punk rock attitude can never die.

— Billy Idol

I like solitude. I like the anomalous life. I like a quiet life.

— Eric Clapton

I love to be individual, to step beyond gender.

— Annie Lennox

Rock and Roll: Music for the neck downwards.

— Keith Richards (Rolling Stones)

People only get one chance to meet you, and if you’re not an arsehole, why give them the opportunity of thinking you are?

— Phil Collins

My favorite music is ’80s music which drives people around me crazy. I really love it.

— Michael Bublé

I hope I die before I get old.

— Roger Daltrey (The Who)

I don’t like to relax. Show me a motherfucker that’s relaxed and I’ll show you a motherfucker that’s scared of success.

— Miles Davis

I found this out over the years, that racism is a thinly veiled disguise over economics and money. It really is.

— Quincy Jones

Sick and perverted always appeals to me.

— Madonna

Fancy being a bee, leading an incredible existence, all those flowers, designed just for you, incredible colours, some trip.

— Kate Bush

I am my own experiment. I am my own work of art.

— Madonna

They’re here!

— Carol Anne (Poltergeist, 1982)

What will I be doing in twenty years’ time? I’ll be dead, darling! Are you crazy?

— Freddie Mercury (Queen)

I think we’ve come a long way since then. The big thing that changed was when ecstasy came along in Britain.

— Neil Tennant (Pet SHop Boys)

Unfortunately, America doesn’t have a minister of culture, and I don’t understand why. It’s really bad for young people.

— Quincy Jones

I never cared about money or fame, and I don’t care now. I follow the groove, and money always follows.

— Quincy Jones

I got a wife who likes expensive things, so she takes all the cash.

— James Brown

I am serious. And don’t call me Shirley.

— Dr. Rumack (Airplane!, 1980)

If you don’t know where you’re going, any road’ll take you there.

— George Harrison

I’m as good as anyone. Even Prince.

— Kevin Rowland (Dexys Midnight Runners)

We became such darlings of a certain type of media. We became a package; we became easy to sell: these three golden nuggets that could pour out all the goods. It was all exposure in an almost violent way.

— Morten Harket (A-ha)

I’m getting older; you realise you are on the countdown of what you are doing, so performing means more than it ever did to me.

— Joe Cocker

Music became a healer for me.

— Eric Clapton

I laugh at myself. I don’t take myself completely seriously. I think that’s another quality that people have to hold on to… you have to laugh, especially at yourself.

— Madonna

We had to leave Norway and go where it was all happening, which was London. We loved it there, but it was hard. We had no money – we were literally starving. It started to get ugly.

— Morten Harket (A-ha)

All of us are products of our childhood.

— Michael Jackson

There’s the paradox of making pop music when you’re in your 50s. People weren’t meant to be doing that originally and yet they are. Mick Jagger [used to say] we’re not going to be doing Satisfaction when I’m in a wheelchair.

— Neil Tennant (Pet SHop Boys)

I’m definitely nostalgic about the music of my youth; The Clash and Fishbone and that whole music scene. I still have all that music to this day. There was some great music going on in the late 70s and 80s.

— John Cusack

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

— Gene Simmons (Kiss)

I don’t want to be a full-time member of Pink Floyd all my life.

— David Gilmour (Pink Floyd)

This world we live in is the dance of the creator. Dancers come and go in the twinkling of an eye, but the dance lives on.

— Michael Jackson

Some boys take a beautiful girl and hide her away from the rest of the world, I want to be the one to walk in the sun.

— Cyndi Lauper

I’m very emotional; I think I may go mad in several years’ time.

— Freddie Mercury (Queen)

All guys get into music because they love music and they also want to get the girls.

— Quincy Jones

If architecture is frozen music then music must be liquid architecture.

— Quincy Jones

Modern paintings are like women, you’ll never enjoy them if you try to understand them.

— Freddie Mercury (Queen)

There’s no religion but sex and music.

— Sting

He slimed me.

— Dr. Peter Venkman (Ghostbusters, 1984)

If you are not doing what you love, you are wasting your time.

— Billy Joel

Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!

— Inigo Montoya (The Princess Bride, 1987)

The one thing that can solve most of our problems is dancing.

— James Brown

I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass… And I’m all out of bubblegum.

— Nada (They Live, 1987)

I’m a much better musician than astronomer. I think the world got the right choice.

— Brian May (Queen)

Rap is poetry to music, like beatniks without beards and bongos.

— David Lee Roth (Van Halen)

One of the benefits of playing to small audiences in small clubs for a few years is that you’re allowed to fail.

— David Byrne (Talking Heads)

Radio as we know it is pretty much changing completely.

— David Lee Roth (Van Halen)

I actually learned the guitar with the help of a Pete Seeger instructional record when I was 13 or 14.

— David Gilmour (Pink Floyd)

I want to lead the Victorian life, surrounded by exquisite clutter.

— Freddie Mercury (Queen)

I could never deny myself bein’ an artist.

— Joe Cocker

Listen, everyone is entitled to my opinion.

— Madonna

I have always felt a little homeless. It’s a strange thing.

— Annie Lennox

The ’80s was a really creative and brave period. Remember, it was a period of ultraconservatism, and so you needed brave people to push ahead like that.

— Cyndi Lauper

I was really lucky that I came to puberty at a time when music and politics were completely intertwined.

— Bob Geldof

I’m just a musical prostitute, my dear.

— Freddie Mercury (Queen)

It’s not a concert you are seeing, it’s a fashion show.

— Freddie Mercury (Queen)

I’ve met every freak in the business.

— Quincy Jones

The problem with self-improvement is knowing when to quit.

— David Lee Roth (Van Halen)

I think sometimes an artist can really lose sight of what made them popular in the first place.

— Chris Lowe (Pet Shop Boys)

The makeup is simply an extension of the personality and colors, clothing, makeup all express something.

— Gene Simmons (Kiss)

One boyfriend told me that I loved myself too much… You can’t love yourself too much.

— Grace Jones

May the Force be with you.

— Forskellige personager (diverse Star Wars-film, 1977+)

I am a romantic, but I do put up a barrier around myself, so it is hard for people to get in and to know the real me.

— Freddie Mercury (Queen)

My son likes Madness. I though he was going to start liking A Flock Of Seagulls, which worried me a lot…

— David Bowie

I am not an animal! I am a human being.

— Joseph Merrick (The Elephant Man, 1980)

The trick to having a happy life is being good at something.

— David Gilmour (Pink Floyd)

Kiss had become culture, had become iconic… Nobody takes Bono’s face and tattoos it on their ass.

— Gene Simmons (Kiss)

Fame for fame’s sake is toxic – some people want that, with no boundaries. It’s unhealthy.

— Annie Lennox

James Bond has a license to kill, rockstars have a license to be outrageous. Rock is about grabbing people’s attention.

— Gene Simmons (Kiss)

You have to remember, videos were on the rise back when we did ‘Take On Me.’

— Morten Harket (A-ha)

Michael Jackson has a very good heart. He was crying when he was giving me the award, ’cause his mind went back over the early days.

— James Brown

I was married for 36 years but now I’m free.

— Quincy Jones

When I look back, I didn’t take care of myself at all.

— Joe Cocker

The whole point of being in this business and being blessed and being successful is that you’re able to do things for your friends or your family, which means that they can have something special in their lives, too.

— Elton John

My son looks more like George Harrison than I do.

— George Harrison

I lucked out when I started to sing. I’d already experienced failing at everything else.

— Cyndi Lauper

You can’t hurt me, I found peace within myself.

— Michael Jackson

When we started, a lot of bands sounded really different from one another.

— David Byrne (Talking Heads)

I just like the company of beautiful women. I have a weakness in that department.

— Eric Clapton

On my darkest days, I wear my brightest colors.

— Cyndi Lauper

I don’t think you can live as long as I have in rock n’ roll and not take a few hard knocks.

— Joe Cocker

Why not invest in the future of music, instead of building fortresses to preserve its past?

— David Byrne (Talking Heads)

I wanted to prove the sustaining power of music.

— David Bowie

My big hobby is photography. I collect stereo photographs from the 19th century.

— Brian May (Queen)

If your world doesn’t allow you to dream, move to one where you can.

— Billy Idol

I don’t care what stage or what reason, as long as we’re playing.

— Billy Idol

Actually, I hear a lot of rock music. My husband is a big rock fan.

— Dolly Parton

Deep in my heart I’m concealing things that I’m longing to say. Scared to confess what I’m feeling – frightened you’ll slip away.

— Madonna

I never listen to the radio unless I rent a car.

— David Byrne (Talking Heads)

When I’m gone, people will no doubt remember me for Queen, but I would much rather be remembered for attempting to change the way we treat our fellow creatures.

— Brian May (Queen)

I had a massive ego. But that’s not such a bad thing… You consider yourself great because you want to be great.

— Prince

I believe that a hundred years from now, when people look back at the 20th century, they will look at Miles, Bird, Clifford Brown, Ella and Dizzy, among elders as our Mozarts, our Chopins, our Bachs and Beethovens.

— Quincy Jones

The show must go on.

— Freddie Mercury (Queen)

Having unlimited choices can paralyze you creatively.

— David Byrne (Talking Heads)

I’m tough, I’m ambitious, and I know exactly what I want. If that makes me a bitch, okay.

— Madonna

When I perform on stage, I often pretend to be someone other than myself to bring a certain emotion or intent to a song.

— Cyndi Lauper

If you respond to pop music as an older person, then it’s your game. But this business has a tremendously visual focus.

— Morten Harket (A-ha)

You cannot get an A if you’re afraid of getting an F.

— Quincy Jones

The hardest thing about being James Brown is I have to live. I don’t have no down time.

— James Brown

You’re not the only one who’s made mistakes, but they’re the only things that you can truly call your own.

— Billy Joel

By the time I was five, I was a little diva.

— Stevie Nicks (Fleetwood Mac)

I’m into paradoxes. I wanted to make an album about them, but the group told me I was a pretentious fart. They were right.

— Brian May (Queen)

I’m never in my life going to do a record that’s a tribute to myself. I don’t need it.

— Quincy Jones

When I left Genesis, I just wanted to be out of the music business. I felt like I was just in the machinery. We knew what we were going to be doing in 18 months or two years ahead. I just did not enjoy that.

— Peter Gabriel

No matter who you are, no matter what you did, no matter where you’ve come from, you can always change, become a better version of yourself.

— Madonna

No. Better research needed. Fire your research person. No fishnet stockings. Never. Not in this band.

— Gene Simmons (Kiss)

Go ahead, make my day.

— “Dirty” Harry Callahan (Sudden Impact, 1983)

Lots of people think songs without singing is not a song. Tell Beethoven that and he’ll kick your ass!

— Eddie Van Halen

If you’re going to have a cabin fever, have a big cabin, you know.

— Joe Cocker

Music has healing power. It has the ability to take people out of themselves for a few hours.

— Elton John

Get away from her, you bitch!

— Ellen Ripley (Aliens, 1986)

I’m going to change you from a rooster to a hen in one shot!

— Doralee Rhodes (9 to 5, 1980)

All you needed was a couple of instruments and a few chords and you could be on an indie label.

— David Byrne (Talking Heads)

I’m a writer … I really wouldn’t like to make singing a full-time occupation.

— David Bowie (1969)

I like all music. The only music I don’t like is bad music.

— Quincy Jones

Wax on, wax off.

— Mr. Miyagi (Karate Kid, 1984)

I’m surprised that I’ve survived my own dysfunction, really.

— George Michael

I really wish I was less of a thinking man and more of a fool not afraid of rejection.

— Billy Joel

There’s more good music being made now than ever before.

— David Byrne (Talking Heads)

It’s hard to picture the direction Madness should go through, because I’m sometimes amused by things, but sometimes I’m annoyed by things.

— Suggs (Madness)

I’m just like anyone. I cut and I bleed and I embarass easily.

— Michael Jackson

You should always celebrate your successes because someone else will celebrate your failures.

— Neil Tennant (Pet SHop Boys)

Being blonde now doesn’t mean Marilyn Monroe vulnerability. Blonde in the Eighties means being in control.

— Kim Wilde

We don’t make music – it makes us.

— David Byrne (Talking Heads)

These are the sort of things that push you on in music – the curiosity, a passion for new ideas.

— Elvis Costello

If you’re unemployed in New York, you’re an artist. If you’re unemployed in LA, you’re an actor. In London, everyone’s unemployed so it doesn’t matter.

— Lydia Lunch

For me, the focus are songs, which really get the audience moving.

— Joe Cocker

… The second time you see something is really the first time. You need to know how it ends before you can appreciate how beautifully it’s put together from the beginning.

— David Gilmour (Pink Floyd)

When God took it, he accepted it; when he brought it back, he accepted it. That’s what’s happening with me.

— James Brown

Apparently, Duran Duran is cool again…but, we always thought we were cool

— Simon Le Bon (Duran Duran)

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.

— Elton John

Who wants to live forever?

— Freddie Mercury (Queen)

Money can’t buy you happiness, but it can buy you a yacht big enough to pull up right alongside it.

— David Lee Roth (Van Halen)

I used to have a drug problem, now I make enough money.

— David Lee Roth (Van Halen)

In the ’80s, I was the only game in town, I was the only one getting that kind of exposure in any rotation on MTV. Now with internet culture it seems like everyone is doing music parodies. And they’re not all good!

— Weird Al Yankovich

I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tanhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain. Time to die.

— Roy Batty (Blade Runner, 1982)

You do an interview and they ask you if your guitar is a phallic symbol. Fuck off. I don’t hold it because it’s shaped like a cock, I hold it because it’s a guitar.

— Lita Ford

You stick your head above the crowd and attract attention and sometimes somebody will throw a rock at you. That’s the territory. You buy the land, you get the Indians.

— David Lee Roth (Van Halen)

The reason we’re successful, darling? My overall charisma, of course.

— Freddie Mercury (Queen)

Hair is the first thing. And teeth the second. Hair and teeth. A man got those two things he’s got it all.

— James Brown

The day before my 16th birthday I got my guitar.

— Stevie Nicks (Fleetwood Mac)

You create a community with music, not just at concerts but by talking about it with your friends.

— David Byrne (Talking Heads)

Queen had its time and place, and at the moment I’m not concentrating on that era.

— Brian May (Queen)

I always felt rock and roll was very, very wholesome music.

— Aretha Franklin

A lot of people are afraid to say what they want. That’s why they don’t get what they want.

— Madonna

Fame and fortune is fairly irrelevant to me. It’s nice because it gives creative freedom. But just wanting to be famous is ridiculous because it’s so vacuous.

— David Essex

I was never interested in being a rock star. I always wanted to be Boris Karloff.

— Gene Simmons (Kiss)

I don’t ever want to grow up. That’s boring.

— Quincy Jones

We are Duran Duran, and we are designed to make you party!

— Simon Le Bon (Duran Duran)

We’ve gone overboard on every Queen album. But that’s Queen.

— Freddie Mercury (Queen)

Sex? I’d rather have a nice cup of tea.

— Boy George (Culture Club)

I don’t love myself to death. I just don’t think I’ve got any bad points.

— Simon Le Bon (Duran Duran)

If you see it there, darling, then it’s there.

— Freddie Mercury (Queen)

The only thing I’m allergic to is criticism.

— David Lee Roth (Van Halen)

One of the jokes in ‘Back to the Future’ is how people in the 1950s don’t get 1980s fashion. People in the 1950s were right.

— Hadley Freeman

Mick Jagger is one of the greatest athletes who ever lived, just for how much he puts into it onstage.

— Axl Rose (Guns n’ Roses)

You have to believe in yourself even when others don’t, or you won’t achieve anything.

— Billy Idol

I’m a perfectionist; I’ll work until I drop.

— Michael Jackson

Fame itself… doesn’t really afford you anything more than a good seat in a restaurant.

— David Bowie

I’m not a snob ask anyone… Anyone that matters.

— Simon Le Bon (Duran Duran)

I had Botox and I hated it. For four long months, I looked like a different person.

— Stevie Nicks (Fleetwood Mac)

The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good.

— Gordon Gecko (Wall Street, 1987)

Doing Made In Heaven was like assembling a jigsaw puzzle, but I wouldn’t have put my seal of approval on it if I hadn’t thought it was up to standard.

— Brian May (Queen)

Ninety percent of all music is always crap, and when too many people decide they’re going to have guitar bands, then ninety percent of them are going to be crap. It’s just a given law.

— David Byrne (Talking Heads)

Music can’t change the world.

— Bob Geldof

I can choose to be a serious musician, but the sex symbol part is not up to me.

— Morten Harket (A-ha)

The Beatles saved the world from boredom.

— George Harrison

It’s nice to get a response from the artists that I cover.

— Joe Cocker

The only funny lines on this show are the ones behind me.

— Max Headroom (Max Headroom, 1987-1988)

I never picked up a guitar as a kid, partly because my dad didn’t want the noise in our little back-to-back in Sheffield.

— Joe Cocker

Scotty, beam me up!

— Captain Kirk (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, 1986)

Nobody puts Baby in a corner.

— Johnny (Dirty Dancing, 1987)

In Genesis we saw ourselves as song-writers. After Peter Gabriel left I was the first to say: ‘It’s OK – we can just do instrumentals.’

— Phil Collins

Say hello to my little friend!

— Tony Montana (Scarface, 1983)

I have a wig for when I go outside among the regular folks, so they don’t feel uncomfortable because I have a Day-Glo color somewhere in my hair.

— Cyndi Lauper

Prince and I were just friends. I think he would have been happy to have had a relationship.

— Stevie Nicks (Fleetwood Mac)

That’s just a part of being an artist: you can’t write great stuff all the time, because if you did, then you’d be inhuman. The human side of people is that sometimes they fail.

— Elton John

When I hear my voice on a record I absolutely loathe my voice. I cannot stand my voice.

— Roger Daltrey (The Who)

I definitely prefer being a lover than a fighter.

— Billy Joel

I always knew I was a star, and now the rest of the world seems to agree with me.

— Freddie Mercury (Queen)

The root of all evil isn’t money; rather, it’s not having enough money.

— Gene Simmons (Kiss)

I don’t try to be a sex bomb. I am one.

— Kylie Minogue

If there’s such a thing as genius – I am one. And if there isn’t, I don’t care.

— John Lennon

I’m not a saint. I’m not an angel. I’m a human being.

— Annie Lennox

House music is about love, and lots of hip hop is about hate and intolerance, so in that respect, it’s not good at all.

— Chris Lowe (Pet Shop Boys)

As long as you hate, there will be people to hate.

— George Harrison

There’s nothing I like more than being on a dance floor with a thousand people feeling love for humanity.

— Chris Lowe (Pet Shop Boys)

The key to this project is the giant laser, which was invented by the noted Cambridge physicist, Dr. Parsons. So therefore, it is fitting to call it: “The Alan Parsons Project”

— Dr. Evil (Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, 1999)

I don’t think anybody comes close to The Beatles, including Oasis

— Brian May (Queen)

Possibly more famous for not doing anything than almost anyone else in the history of popular entertainment.

— The Guardian (engelsk avis) om Chris Lowe (Pet Shop Boys)

A lot of songs that have been called sexist are about my daughter. I did a song called Girl which went: “You treat me like a dog and I shake my tail for you”, because she’s the only girl who’s ever had me on all fours doing impressions of horses.

— David Coverdale (Whitesnake)

Stupidity combined with arrogance and a huge ego will get you a long way.

— Chris Lowe (Pet Shop Boys)

I think of myself as a performance artist. I hate being called a pop star. I hate that.

— Madonna

If you have stage fright, it never goes away. But then I wonder: is the key to that magical performance because of the fear?

— Stevie Nicks (Fleetwood Mac)

I’m self-made. I always wanted to make myself a better person because I was not educated. But that was my dream – to have class.

— Tina Turner

When you look like a cartoon, you act like a cartoon.

— Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top)

I’m beginning to think that you should only be allowed to serve two terms, before madness sets in.

— Chris Lowe (Pet Shop Boys)

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