David Bowie is the king of changes and transformation. He created and collaborated on over 23 albums, each where listeners are presented with new characters and new images.
Here are some quotes from this legendary performer:
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“I’m not a prophet or a stone aged man, just a mortal with potential of a superman. I’m living on.”
“The drugs started taking a more severe hold of my life. The ability within your conscious mind to actually deliver yourself into two separate parts disappears and the lines blur, and it’s only this one formless mutant that’s left behind…I didn’t know I was playing characters at that time.”
“I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise it won’t be boring.”
“You can neither win nor lose if you don’t run the race.”
“I’m always amazed that people take what I say seriously. I don’t even take what I am seriously.”
“I always has a repulsive need to be something more than human.”
I think Mick Jagger would be astounded and amazed if he realized to many people he is not a sex symbol, but a mother image.
“When you think about it, Adolf Hitler was the first pop star.”
“I told them I’d only do it if they got Arcade Fire to perform. They’re fantastic.”
“A mountain or a tree is a manifestation of forces we are not capable of dealing with.”
” I’m looking for backing for an unauthorized auto-biography that I am writing. Hopefully, this will sell in such huge numbers that I will be able to sue myself for an extraordinary amount of money and finance the film version in which I play everybody.”
“I’m an instant star, just add water and stir.”
“Heathenism is a state of mind. You can take it that I’m referring to one who does not see his world. He has no mental light. He destroys almost unwittingly. He cannot feel any Gods presence in his life. He is the 21st century man.”
“Everywhere I looked, demons of the future [were] on the battlegrounds of one’s emotional plane.”
“Don’t you love the Oxford Dictionary? When I first read it, I thought it was a really really long poem about everything.”
“Once you lose that sense of wonder at being alive, you’re pretty much on the way out…”
“Discipline doesn’t mean you make sure you get up at eight in the morning…Discipline is if you conceive something then you decide whether or not it’s worth following through, and if it’s worth following through, you follow it through to its logical conclusion and do it to the best of your ability.”
“I rate Morrissey (Steven Patrick Morrissey) as one of the best lyricists in Britain. For me, he’s up there with Bryan Ferry.”
“The truth is of course is that there is no journey. We are arriving and departing all at the same time.”
“To not be modest about it, you’ll find that with only a couple of exceptions, most of the musicians that I’ve worked with have done their best work by far with me.”
“It amazes me sometimes that even intelligent people will analyze a situation or make a judgement after only recognizing the standard or traditional structure of a piece.”
“I’m a good performer and I’m a good singer but that has nothing to do with being a musician- Does it?”
“Frankly, I mean, sometimes the interpretations I’ve seen on some of the songs that I’ve written are a lot more interesting than the input that I put in.”
“On the other hand, what I like my music to do to me is awaken the ghosts inside of me. Not the demons, you understand, but the ghosts.”
“However, there’s no theme or concept behind ‘Heathen’, just a number of songs but somehow there is a thread that runs through it that is quite as strong as any of my thematic type albums.”
“I’ve never responded well to entrenched negative thinking.”
“But I’ve got to think of myself as the luckiest guy. Robert Johnson only had one album’s worth of work as his legacy. That’s all that life allowed him.”
“I never could get over the fact that The Pixies formed, worked and separated without America taking them to its heart or even recognizing their existence for the most part.”
“Pixies and Sonic Youth were so important to the eighties.”
“The few times I saw him perform in London at UFO and the Marquee clubs during the `60s will forever be etched in my mind. He was so charismatic and such a startlingly original songwriter. Also, along with Anthony Newley, he was the first guy I`d heard to sing pop or rock with a British accent. His impact on my thinking was enormous. A major regret is that I never got to know him. A diamond indeed.” (On Syd Barrett)
“I am a bisexual. But I can’t deny that I’ve used that fact very well. I suppose it’s the best thing that ever happened to me. Fun, too…”
“I once asked (John) Lennon what he thought of what I do. He said `it`s great, but its just rock and roll with lipstick on.’
“Talking about art is like dancing about architecture.”
“I re-invented my image so many times that I`m in denial that I was originally an overweight Korean woman.”
“There, in the chords and melodies, is everything I want to say. The words just jolly it along. It`s always been my way of expressing what for me is inexpressible by any other means.”
“You can dress a show with a trillion dollars worth of goodies, but if the show is not substantial, there’ll be no impact.”
“There, in the chords and melodies, is everything I want to say. The words just jolly it along. It’s always been my way of expressing what for me is inexpressible by any other means.”
“When I heard Little Richard, I mean, it just set my world on fire.”
“I get offered so many bad movies. And they’re all raging queens or transvestites or Martians.”
“It would be my guess that Madonna is not a very happy woman. From my own experience, having gone through persona changes like that, that kind of clawing need to be the center of attention is not a pleasant place to be.”
“I think fame itself is not a rewarding thing. The most you can say is that it gets you a seat in restaurants.”
It’s odd but even when I was a kid, I would write about “old and other times” as though I had a lot of years behind me. Now I do, so there is a difference in the weight of memory. When you’re young, you’re still “becoming”, now at my age I am more concerned with “being”. And not too long from now I’ll be driven by “surviving”, I’m sure. I kind of miss that “becoming” stage, as most times you really don’t know what’s around the corner. Now, of course, I’ve kind of knocked on the door and heard a muffled answer. Nevertheless, I still don’t know what the voice is saying, or even what language it’s in.”
“I don`t know how many times someone has come up to me and said, `Hey, Lets dance!` I hate dancing. God, it`s stupid.”
