Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Human progress depends on unreasonable people. Reasonable people accept the world as they meet it; unreasonable people persist in trying to change it. Well, I'm Bob and I'm an unreasonable person. And if TED is anything, it is the olympics of unreasonable people.
The New Romantic scene was so tiny. Although it got lots of mileage in the media, it was a really small club with only a core group of people. As it got more popular, kids started to come from the suburbs all dressed up, but it -really wasn't as big as it looked.
A hat has to be shaped to a person's face so it fights just right. It has to be done right. If you put my hat on, with my shape, you'd look like an idiot. If the bill is too high or too saggy, you look like a European tourist going to their first country concert.
I used to turn to nature and animals a lot. And fishing. I spend time still with my Bible and the gospel music, and I still have to feed the animals! But my wife and daughter have brought me a world of perspective when I'm feeling just a little "extra important."
'Victorious' for me was a chance to write a song exactly how I was feeling - I was feeling triumphant, I was feeling like I could do anything as long as I've got the people that I love by my side. We're gonna go out and conquer it, and party, and just be awesome.
You can't listen to what people who aren't musical have to say. When Anytime was released, I had bad reviews, and at first I was hurt. Your songs are like your children. You don't want to hear, 'Your kid is ugly.' But I knew the record was good and it would sell.
David Bowie is the quintessential English gentleman and, of course, a musical and generational institution. I only played support for him for one night (not a whole tour) but he was incredibly gracious and generous toward me and I've certainly never forgotten it.
And he don't know...that I dug my key into the side of his pretty little souped up 4 wheel drive, carved my name into his leather seats. I took a Louisville slugger to both headlights, slashed a hole in all 4 tires...Maybe, next time he'll think before he cheats.
The spiritual quest was always the predominant aspect of my life. It's always been there. But there's also an incredible passion connected to it; it's not just a dry investigative process. I have been extremely emotional about it, and that comes out in the songs.
My hair and I had a really bad argument. She was being sprayed with alcohol and burnt with irons. She was being over processed and yanked and pulled by weave strings and suffocated by glue. She told me if I didn't straighten up and fly right that she was leaving.
We're going to sing about things that matter to us. The balancing act is to present these ideas but also make the music exciting and sort of fun enough that even if you're not paying attention to the lyrics, you might still like the songs anyway. That's the idea.
Own what you are, and I mean whether that's art, or whether that's fashion, or whether that's music, or whether that's acting, or whether that's politics, or whether that's literature; it's own what you are, and grab it, and, you know, be as prolific as possible.
When I was growing up in the early '70s and really getting into music, waiting outside the record store for that 45, waiting for a single from The Dead, The Clash, David Bowie, or T-Rex or something to be there. There was something about that that was so special.
I like to believe that you don't need to reach a certain goal to be happy. I prefer to think that happiness is always there, and that when things don't go the way we might like them to, it's a sign from above that something even better is right around the corner.
To me it's a two-way street. They're good to me, and I'm good to them. It's a natural thing for me to love people, and I think people sense it. ... I am secure with the kind of person I am. I don't feel like I'm better than anyone, but I'm just as good as anyone.
People used to say my son looked like a Mexican Biggie. And when he was first born, memories of Biggie... you know, we didn't always have the greatest days. For at least half the length of our marriage we were separated, so everyday was definitely not a good day.
I think it's all about the people who listen to your music, and loving playing and writing. Once you've got those two, and they're your main two priorities, then radio and TV and all the other stuff that comes with it will come. But that's not the be-all end-all.
Your band members? Your band members don't want to be tied to a machine. They want to be playing. That's what the Beatles did. And the Beatles' stuff is timeless. That's what I would suggest. Just get back to sweating, playing hard, hammering, and having a blast.
Music has been so healing in my life, so the fact that my music could be that for someone else is the best gift of my whole career. People have told me that they got married to my music, divorced to my music, and played my music while they were having their baby.
If I wasn't even famous or had any success, I would still wake up and put tons of make-up on, and put on a cool outfit. That's always been who I've been my whole life, so that's never gonna change. I love fashion. I love getting dressed up. I love Halloween, too.
I'm very shy and awkward. I think the best thing is to embrace it. It's about accepting who you are and what you want to become and knowing all that you've got to work with, whether it's good or bad. My music was the only place I could be me for the longest time.
I think you can't really escape any kind of spiritual education as a child, whether it's New Age or Judaism or Buddhism or whatever it is. You can't escape it, even if you completely disagree with it, you still have it as a foundation that you base things off of.
Music is really everything I know. To be honest every experience I've ever had has been brought up from music and everything I do is because of music. I don't know anything else, I think about music before I go to sleep and it just really is everything that I am.
'm really proud of 'Sad, Sad World' because it manages to state a very complex paradox of an emotion that I experienced when I had children, which is this great happiness and this great intensity, but with that intensity comes a deeper understanding of the world.
I like a spirituality with a God that knows how to drive a car, that knows how to take his girl to the dance club, dance all night, have a little drink, kiss the kid when they come back in and go to sleep. God doesn't need a chauffeur-- he needs to drive himself.
I like a spirituality with a God that knows how to drive a car, that knows how to take his girl to the dance club, dance all night, have a little drink, kiss the kid when they come back in and go to sleep. God doesn't need a chauffeur - he needs to drive himself.
When we're children we're told love is going to be great: Just fall in love, the rest will take care of itself - and then we fall in love and we realize, Okay, this is actually really, really hard work. This guy doesn't just tell me I'm great every day, you know?
I think they need to get a more reliable way of watching television on the laptop. Because I travel so much, if I want to watch my favorite sports team it might not be showing in that place, so I want a reliable way to watch whatever I want to watch on my laptop.
Even when I was coming up in the singer-songwriter ranks during the early '70s, I thought that people who were stylists and stuff shoulda still been up on the pedestal. I mean, it's fine to recognize people who write songs, but it kinda got out of hand, you know?
I think 'Tattoo's a song that can go so many different ways. Some people think of it as a break-up song, but, for me, it's about somebody who comes into your life and really touches you - be they a friend, a family member or someone you're in a relationship with.
I think I've become more aware of aging in the last couple of years because of friends dying of cancer or friends' parents dying and myself - I'm still healthy, but I'm aging, and that's something that I think about more, even though I shouldn't be too concerned.
We always had a guitar at home, but it wasn't until I was 14 when I picked it up myself when my father handed me these sheets of music of the Beatles and some other classics. That's where I learned all the chords and learned how to play and sing at the same time.
I think that my relationship with my fans has been very special from day one. It's been very special in spite of the fact that I don't think I would ever be able to call myself a press darling. I don't think there's ever been a superficial hype machine around me.
There is no greater feeling than hanging out with my dogs, or just walking around the land with our horses. My rescue ranch is is where I feel the most at peace and where I'm reminded of the simple things in life and let the chaos of my crazy work life fade away.
Bob summed it up best when he was on his knees at the end of the night saying, 'Don't trust in Guided By Voices.' You were there; was the show awful or something? I know it was sloppy, but they're not really that tight anyway, but was it embarrassing, was it sad?
I've leaned on God for so long. "Hey, God, you just gave me this gift, and I'm just going to go out there and sing." But I'm realizing how much larger and how expansive my gift becomes when I actually pay attention to it and try to practice and try to perfect it.
Everybody knows that the boat is leaking. Everybody knows the captain lied. Everybody got this broken feeling, like their father or their dog just died. Everybody talking to their pockets. Everybody wants a box of chocolates and a long-stem rose. Everybody knows.
Part of the shabbiness of our culture, if indeed it is shabby, is that it doesn't seem to prepare people. With all the songs about love and all the movies and all the books, there doesn't seem to be any way that we can prepare the human heart for this experience.
When I lost my husband [Oliver "Doolittle" Lynn], I just didn't want to work so hard anymore. I hate that I didn't quit things a lot more before he was gone. I stayed home for six years to take care of him but, at some point, I also felt I had to go back to work.
You don't want to be the smartest person in the room; you want to be the dumbest in the room. You want to be surrounded by other thinking people who are going to say something that makes you think, "Oh, my God, that's an amazing idea. Why didn't I think of that."
When you have to pass through a couple of kids with Uzis on your way out of Jerusalem, you don't forget those images. Getting out of your comfort zone is healthy. It's one thing to hear about how things work in other countries, but it's another thing to be there.
What's happening right now, this month, I check in and go, 'Hey. You are at the top of a wave right now. Look around and enjoy it because it's not going to stay,' ... The wave goes away. It does not dictate how good I am or my worth. It's just the way it happens.
I became really creative around the time I started understanding that people could be creative with music and that that was allowed. I stated taking piano lessons at age five, but I never did what my piano teacher told me to do. I would just do whatever I wanted.
When I need my wife or when I need companionship or someone to talk to, I need it, like, now. So my wife will have to give up whatever she's doing at that moment to tend to my needs. And, in the same way, I would tend to hers. That's not such an easy thing to do.
I don't always like walking down the street and making sure that I smile and say hello to everybody who's walking their dog in the opposite direction. But I do do it. And it's a small, tiny thing to do. But to me, it means 'I see you. You're not invisible to me.'
My family were wheeler-dealer class. They were their own bosses and very glamorous. We lived in a beautiful, big townhouse in Arklow, in Ireland, that we couldn't afford to heat. My father had a business fitting bar furniture, and my mother is an antiques dealer.
If you allow for a purely capitalistic society, without any type of regulation at all, you will get one monopoly that will eat all of the smaller fish and own everything, and then you'll have zero capitalism, zero competition - it would just be one giant company.
My wife and I had decided not to let anybody take pictures of our home because it was just the last place on earth we had that was unscathed. But people have climbed over the fence; they've taken aerial shots. They've gotten my address and put it on the Internet.
Music has always been in my family, but it was mainly keyboards. I learned to play classical piano, but when I first heard the amazing bass guitar of James Jamerson, who played on all the big Motown hits of the '60s and '70s, I knew bass guitar was my instrument.
It's like there's the rest of the world, and then there's America. Part of the reason I would really love continue to making music over here because so much of American music has inspired me, whether it's Jeff Buckley, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen.