Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Being in Birmingham, I thought I was going to be a gangster or a bag-runner or a thief. I heard music and I was determined to get out of there.
None of us is perfect. Everyone has got a skeleton in the closet that they don't want people to find out. I just let it go, with a bit of humor.
My son Jack once said to me, 'Dad, do you think people are laughing with you or at you?' And I said, 'I don't care as long as they're laughing.'
My son Jack just got out of rehab, he's 17 years old and he got hooked on Oxycontin and I'm just a little pissed off that he never gave me a few.
I feel joy when I do a great show. I get fun out of making other people happy. I'm a terminal people-pleaser. I suppose that's why I'm a frontman.
I can see thru mountains watch me disappear, I can even touch the sky. Swallowing the colors of the sounds I hear, am I just a crazy guy? You bet.
I never received any encouragement. My father would work nights and my mother would work during the day. We were expected to get a job with a trade.
Drugs and alcohol were ruling my life. I made a lot of bad decisions while I was drinking alcohol. The first thing I stopped was cigarettes and tobacco.
Hating people isn’t a productive way of living. So what’s the point in hating anyone? There’s enough hate in the world as it is, without me adding to it.
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.
I don't want you to play me a riff that's going to impress Joe Satriani; give me a riff that makes a kid want to go out and buy a guitar and learn to play.
They teach you how to handle life in England, but they don’t teach you a thing about death. There’s no book telling you what to do when your mum or dad dies.
They said I would never write this book. Well, f**k ’em – ’cos here it is. All I have to do now is remember something... Bollocks. I can’t remember anything.
I never thought I could write anything or do a show sober, ever. But I did the Black Sabbath shows sober, and it was so much better fun for me, and everybody.
I remember what a thrill it was to go from the back streets of Birmingham to Madison Square Garden in New York...it's like playing on Mars. You can't buy that.
I open the door for old ladies, I help old ladies across the road. I do a show for leukemia every year, but I don't broadcast that because it's against my image.
And I never missed one concert. In 89 shows, I think I did one a bit suspect show. In the old days, I'd pull gigs left, right and center because I was too f - - up.
How can you go on stage and shout 'Yeah! Rock'n'roll forever!' and then go to bed at 10 o'clock with a nightcap on, a candle in your hand and a Bible under your arm?
I kept hearing that metal is dead and Ozzy's dead and people that like Ozzy are dead. I have never had an empty seat. I've always sold out, so who's saying it's all over?
I'm not a big fan of TV. It's an unavoidable situation being Ozzy Osbourne, people want you to go on chat shows, and I'm not good at it. I don't feel comfortable doing it.
If I go out with a jacket and a pair of trousers that my wife doesn't like, you can bet your ass it ain't in my wardrobe the following day. I say that it gets lost in the sky.
For years I've had neurological problems. I used to shake a lot and I was on medication - I paid about $700,000 for one year of pills. I was taking 40-odd different ones a day.
Black Sabbath wasn't like the Bon Jovis of the time. We were just a bunch of guys that were against the grain of society. And we sung about things that people thought back then.
My philosophy is if you're happy being a born - again Christian, if you're happy being a Roman Catholic, if you're happy being a Jew or Moslem ... great!! I'm happy being Ozzy.
Tell me I'm a sinner I got news for you I spoke to God this morning and he don't like you! Don't you try and teach me no original sin; I don't need your pity for the shape I'm in
I hyperventilate opening a box of chocolates. I'm the most nervous guy in the world, a frightened little man on red alert from when I wake until I go to sleep. I was born with fear.
I believe in what I do. I mean, I don't go out - I don't have the clothes or drink anymore, I don't do drugs or any of that. I used to. But I got very ready to get me out of the house.
Nobody ever told me, I found out for myself, You gotta believe in foolish miracles, it's not how you play the game, it's if you win or lose, you can choose, don't confuse, win or lose.
It was always fun in the early days of Black Sabbath, when I stayed away from heavy drugs. Then someone gave me cocaine and I went, "Hallelujah!" I thought I'd found the meaning of life!
I've been in rehabs with hardcore heroin addicts who say, 'I've kicked the heroin, but I can't let go of the tobacco.' I haven't smoked a cigarette in a long time. I like being clean now.
Most guys my age are boring human beings. They sit in bars, get drunk, and then go home to tell their kids the way to rule their lives, while they're absolutely stewed out of their brains.
I keep hearing this [expletive] thing that guns don't kill people, but people kill people. If that's the case, why do we give people guns when they go to war? Why not just send the people?
Occasionally, I go off the rails. I once nearly killed somebody once - it wasn't funny. I am a lunatic. The pressure of work, the pressure - everyone has a stop valve, and I don't have one.
Did you know that the percentage of young people in the crucial 'youthquake' age bracket of 15 to 24 was higher in 1973 than in 1967 ? Therefore it was glam rock that ended the war in Vietnam.
With my recovery programme, I have to do a daily inventory of how my day has been. I am terribly dyslexic and have attention deficit disorder, so I have to carry a tape recorder everywhere I go.
I'm out doing my deal, I'm turning people on. What's wrong with taking people away from their everyday mundane situation and having a good, fun night for an hour and a half at a rock'n'roll scene?
I didn't really like the taste of booze. I liked the effect it did on me. But I can't say I savored a glass full of Chablis Chablis 1932. I drank whatever s - - was in front of me and got me buzzed.
I'm about caring, I'm about people, and I'm about entertaining people. I'm a family man. A husband. A father. I've been a lot of other things over the years, which we don't really want to talk about.
When I was a practicing alcoholic, I was unbelievable. One side effect was immense suspicion: I'd come off tour like Inspector Clouseau on acid. 'Where's this cornflake come from? It wasn't here before.
Ten thousand million nightmares, temptation by the score, I used to get so high, and still I wanted more. You think my time is wasted in search of who I am, I tried so hard to kill the boy inside the man.
I was always apologizing for yesterday's behavior and I got tired of it. I feel it's good being straight. As I did when I first got high. It's a high to be straight because I was getting loaded every day.
There are some singers that have great technique and then there are those that have a certain quality or style in their voice. Some have both, like Freddie Mercury, but to me, I prefer style over technique.
People want it to be red, like blood. It's kind of funny. When I used to throw meat into the audience, I'd get letters from kids' mothers saying, "What's the best way to get blood stains out of my son's shirt?"
They say military have the so-called 'secret intelligence' - this amount of intelligence must be very secret, since I've never seen any intelligent military person, nor I have seen any sense in the bloody stupid wars.
I used to smoke cigarettes, smoke dope, do smack, every f - - thing. First, I couldn't function without it. Then I couldn't do anything with or without it. Then I thought, "This is the end of the line for my fun days."
I've had every known chemical - cocaine, booze - and tobacco is the hardest one in the world for me to quit. You watch old flicks? It's suggestion by looking at something: You see a cigarette, and it makes you want to smoke!
I finally came to the decision that I couldn't do it like that anymore. So I surrendered to that. I did (the Sabbath reunion tour) without anything - cigarettes, tobacco, dope, anything. And I had so much more fun without it.
I've been dictating to my son, who's helping me on his computer. I'm spending a lot of time doing research - I've just got up to 1971, when I went crazy and dived through the window. My life is so full of interesting stories.
In those days, if you wanted a new car or a holiday, you'd phone up the office and they'd send you some cash. You never had a bank account. I don't know anyone from the music business in the Seventies that it didn't happen to.
People say to me, you have not got stage fright. And if I haven't got stage fright, then I'm going to be comfortable within myself, and then something - I've always been that way and so I'm fighting to get away from that fear.