Quote collection
456 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"I like making records right now 'cause I can express myself that way in a very immediate, physical sense. You can always write a book, but you can't always do a rock 'n' roll record that's gonna work."
"A lullaby should be timeless because it's a timeless concept - the birth of the child."
"More than anything that's been the thread through my life - the desire to write, the impulse to write. I mean, it's taken me other places, but it was the impulse to write that led me to singing."
"If I have any regrets, I could say that I'm sorry I wasn't a better writer or a better singer."
"New York is the thing that seduced me."
"I don't wear makeup. I can't stand nothin' on my face. It's a phobia. It's not a platform."
"I'm not really a musician. I'm a performer and I love rock 'n' roll."
"I was so involved in my boy-rhythms that I never came to grips with the fact that I was a girl. I was twelve years old when my mother took me inside and said, "You can't be outside wrestling without a T-shirt on." It was a trauma."
"When I was home, traditionally since I was young, I'd write in cafés. That was the romantic notion in 1963. Café atmospheres back then were different. The café life really stemmed from the Parisians' idea of it, with poets struggling over their poems and drinking coffee. No music, no sounds, maybe a little jazz, or soul, but mostly nothing. Now you go into a café and the music is really loud, people are having business meetings, they are on their cellphones. It changes from generation to generation."
"I don't feel that censorship keeps me from doing the work, though. I'm my bigger censor."
"I always know that everything I do is the best I could do."
"I was so unhealthy as a child, and at least three or four times my parents were told to get ready, that I would not make it."
"We're a culture more than ever that wants proof of everything, we want things fast, and someone sends you an email, you want to answer in five minutes. We have to allow ourselves nothingness, in our relationships too."
"I had met Michael Stipe, and he was such a kind person, and extremely understanding, so I asked him if he knew a photographer who would come to Detroit, where I lived, who would be child friendly and who would respect my home. Michael suggested Steven [ Sebring]. One day a knock came at my door, and when I opened it, there was Steven. He's been like a brother ever since."
"With the death of Robert Mapplethorpe, I had lost my main collaborator in taking photographs. So I didn't know who to work with."
"I like photographing dresses in windows. I actually wore a lot of dresses in the '70s. I like them on other people now."
"If your label won't let you have the cover you want or sing the songs you want, then leave!"
"When you do controversial work, you're going to upset a certain amount of people."
"Horses pretty much broke as a record in England."
"Not everything we do as artists has deep intent. If we push barriers, that's great, but sometimes we just do our work. Whether we make some kind of statement, consciously or unconsciously, we shouldn't take the innocence away from what we do."