Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I don't care whether they're men or women, that's bullshit. A good writer can get into any gender, can get into any mouth. When I write I may be a Brando creep, or a girl laying on the floor, or a Japanese tourist, or a slob like Richard Speck. You have to be a chameleon when you're writing.
I was 17, and it was my first summer in London as a professional singer. One hot, humid evening, I heard that the Jimi Hendrix Experience was playing in a blues club above a pub in Finsbury Park. I was flat broke and couldn't afford a ticket, so I went along just to stand outside and listen.
I had to grow to love my body. I did not have a good self-image at first. Finally it occurred to me, I'm either going to love me or hate me. And I chose to love myself. Then everything kind of sprung from there. Things that I thought weren't attractive became sexy. Confidence makes you sexy.
I've been giving back since I was a teen, handing out turkeys at Thanksgiving and handing out toys at toys drives for Christmas. It's very important to give back as a youth. It's as simple as helping an old lady across the street or giving up your seat on the bus for someone who is pregnant.
As a businessman, I saw club tracks as a new franchise that could be profitable for years to come. It was like being in McDonald's and realizing that even though cheeseburgers and fries sold big, you could also make money serving up McRibs, which are always available for a limited time only.
I've called myself the Pied Piper, I've called myself the Weatherman, I've called myself Kellz, I've called myself a lot of things, changing the name, switching it up, just flipping, remixing. But never to harm anybody. Never to make a deep statement for people to dig into and figure it out.
I think you have a crossover when you are known to a wider audience and a different market. I've been able to sell out stadiums all over the world by doing my music. I'm lucky to be in that list without having done an official crossover. Now, will you hear me doing a little bit of R&B? Sure.
They would send me notes on what's going on, and we would pitch in and talk about what we wanted to talk about on the show. I just really did my homework. It was more like a real job for me. Doing this talk show was like, "Wow, this is what they do?!" I can't even imagine doing it every day.
When I look at acting careers that I really admire, I see that it's been a precise decision-making process for these people. They make decisions based on what they love, and they do only the things that they are passionate about. They play only characters that they can't stop thinking about.
You're standing onstage in a sold-out arena with people singing your music, and you feel like the loneliest person in the world. Because here's a party that, essentially, it's for you. And you still somehow feel like you don't belong there. Those people all have their lives and go back home.
I'm definitely more talented than most of the guys I know. A lot of guys who just want to have sex will sit with the same woman and try all night. I'm able to look at a woman, have a five-minute conversation with her, and tell if it's a waste of time or not. I figure things out a lot faster.
I am so weak over love and heartbreak. My music is rhythm and blues and with that said, the blues element of it is a major portion. I feel like it has been lost in R&B and a lot of people are scared to talk about their vulnerabilities and insecurities. They want to keep it up and in the club.
I think the most important thing to remember is that pain passes. And artistically, the pain is going to pass. It's what you want to express out of the pain as opposed to indulging in the agony-and-pain mantra of songwriting that became such a hit in the '90s and still, all the way up to now.
I was in 'Jacques Brel' Off-Broadway for many years, so I've always been a singing actress, but the songwriting was a complete surprise. I had never written a song in my life. We were on the road with 'Jacques Brel' doing the national tour, and I picked up a guitar one day and I wrote a song.
Growing up, I went to the Warped Tour a lot, and I got to see bands like Rancid and AFI and Dropkick Murphys and these bands that meant so much to me when I was a kid - all in succession on these stages, so to get to play that same stage that I watched those bands play is a huge thing for me.
I certainly know first hand the waste one lady can create through her primping routine, because I am a victim of fashion: to me a day without makeup and a bouffant to match is a day wasted. I love it all - whether it's fancy, cheap or, I'm ashamed to say, even if it's bad for the environment.
For me, I like old-school rap music. There was a time when music was so, so rich overall, and the content of what people talked about was so deep on every level, song-for-song, pound-for-pound, and on radio, there was so much content. I gravitate more towards that type of music, to be honest.
We spend a lot of time bickering at great cost, and very little time actually coming up with solutions. And I think we misuse our ambition for our own gains and rarely for the betterment of ourselves, and people around us and our environment. And I think that's sort of pathetic and desperate.
Everybody in my neighborhood in the '40s, they played pianos. That's how people partied. They didn't try the TV, the radio was OK, records was cool, but when people wanted to party, they got around a piano. My mother played piano, my sister played. I've been around a lot of piano all my life.
As a kid I'd lie awake at night and convince myself that a meteor was about to hit the Earth. It's my fatalistic streak, which I've inherited from my mum. I firmly believe something cataclysmic is going to happen in my lifetime and I have to be prepared to run for my life when the time comes.
They usually have a piano in every nursing home, and I always wanted to perform for whoever would listen when I learned something. I grew to understand very early that a lot of these people who are in nursing homes are elderly and don't have a lot of things that give them joy from day to day.
When you discover your sexuality - like when you're little, you don't notice it. Then suddenly you're walking down the street and you're whistled at. And you're like, Oh, I have this power I didn't know about. And you also discover you're kind of prey. And you're like, Wait, that's confusing.
The original Jethro Tull was a 19th century English agriculturist who invented a seed drill you see. The first automatic process where by small holes were made in Mother Earth and even smaller seeds were deposited one at a time and neatly covered over as a cat does after having being naughty.
My touring isn't about collecting souvenirs and always being on the go. My souvenirs are writing in my journal and creating new music, because that fits easily into my backpack when I'm travelling around the world. It's something that I can share later with fans or with future family members.
Some people want fame, popularity and huge sales. I've always hoped to have a really long career. So I've tried to make each of my creative decisions and business decisions to allow for longevity. As a side effect I got really famous and really big. I didn't realize the two could go together.
Records have never really been my strong suit. I've always been a much better live act. I didn't understand the language of the studio. You sing differently in a studio. The language, the craft - it's just a whole different deal. I avoided the problem on my first record by doing a live album.
I think when I was about 12 or 13, my dad started taking me out to the local golf course, and that's the first time I ever hit a golf ball. I picked it up pretty quickly, just kind of monkey-see, monkey-do. But when I was 12, golf was so slow to me. For me, it was basketball, girls and music.
Your kids can say some cruel things to you at times. For example, Nicole, Miles and Sofie are standing there in the room and I'm dressed to kill in my own mind. They'll say to me, 'Dad, you're not going out there looking like that are you?' If that doesn't kill a star, I don't know what does!
I was happy to carry on without children because I was completely immersed in my work and my career. I only heard the clock ticking in my late 30s, and when my mother Marion died the year I turned 40 it hit me with such a force that we ended up having IVF, which turned out to be unsuccessful.
I really want to see everything. If it's around me and it's part of my show, I need to be a part of all of it. From the creation of the music, to the surface of the floor, to everyone's hairstyle, to the details with the buttons and the bows and the snaps and the zippers. All of those things!
I think people are transient. Back in the early church, there was a 'stick and stay' mentality. In this day and time, people have a fast food mentality of ministry. If it doesn't fit them or if it doesn't fit in their schedule, they'll move on to something else. That's a norm in today's time.
I once ran away from home because I was upset with my parents! I didn't get farther than a few feet into the woods, where I hid behind a tree. Sometimes you feel like you should just go out and rebel, and then you realize it's not the right thing to do. You've got to stay true to your family.
I love to draw-pencil, ink pen-I love art. When I go on tour and visit museums in Holland, Germany or England-you know those huge paintings?-I'm just amazed. You don't think a painter could do something like that. I can look at a piece of sculpture or a painting and totally lose myself in it.
Nothing quenches the thirst like a wheat beer, or sharpens the appetite like an India pale ale. Nothing goes as well with seafood as a dry porter or stout, or accompanies chocolate like an imperial stout. Nothing soothes like a barleywine. These are just a few of the specialty styles of beer.
It almost takes people by surprise when I'm not a big talker. Because I'm known as being sort of a loud mouth. I have a lot to say. But I try to be more thoughtful with my comments or reactions, unless it's something witty or hysterical that I just can't keep myself from blurting or tweeting!
I want to write for people that are trying to do some kind of quality music. What I mean by quality music is not so much the trend, what is hot right now. I don't write trendy, I write what feels good and something that feels good will never get old. Timeless music is what I try to shoot for.
I knew how the suits used to talk about the artists, with barely concealed contempt. So I knew what was waiting for me round the corner. Because I wasn't one of those very unusual people like Neil Diamond or Elton John, whose careers just seem to span the decades. I knew I wasn't one of them.
I'm very curious about David Bowie's new record [2016]. I'm very, very... I'm just incredibly curious, I want to see what's happening with that. I don't really know who else is putting out records, we've had our heads buried working on ours. I haven't really been paying much attention lately.
I was rejected for couple of adverts for sounding too sad. One was for Diet Coke, but it's a good thing it didn't happen because it probably would have been a big blight on my soul. It also happened with a fabric softener called Downy, and I guess the way I sang 'Only Downy' made people weep.
I met Paul Kossoff for the first time when I was playing in the back of a pub room in Finsbury Park in London in 1967. It was kind of a blues thing going on, and he came up and said, 'I'd like to have a jam.' So he came up and jammed with me, and I just loved his playing right from the start.
Cooking, to me, it's kind of therapeutic. It's completely different from music as well. I'm not amazing at it, but I can cook myself a good meal. And I'm not just saying this, but anytime I'm on the bus or at home, I'm watching Food Network or cooking on TV just 'cause it's interesting to me.
If I could change anything, I would definitely have had a father around. My father. I would definitely say it affected me deeply as a young man, coming up. Who doesn't want a father? Those are the beginnings, and those are what can dictate the roads you choose in life, and choosing them well.
Look at us all - we are all of us lost and in all of our different ways of pretending, we all fool ourselves into the very same hell. Look at the cross - we are all of us loved and one God meets us all at the point of our common need and brings to all of us - all who will let Him - salvation.
I think my parents were really smart parents. I think they were, actually, pretty progressive for the time. The one thing that they really wanted me to know is what makes me tick, what I am about, how I approach life. And I think what my parents really wanted for me was for me to be who I am.
Though it's frequently portrayed as this crazy, unbridled festival of rain-soaked, stoned hippies dancing in the mud, Woodstock was obviously much more than that - or we wouldn't still be talking about it in 2009. People of all ages and colors came together in the fields of Max Yasgur's farm.
My dad is Dominican, my mother's Puerto Rican, and I got into bachata at the age of 10 or 11. When I started listening, it had a reputation for being music for hick people. I thought that had to be changed. I was born and raised in the Bronx, and I knew you make something cool if you're cool.
It sounds like I'm channeling or something, and I don't really fully understand what it is. I'll get a piece of paper and write down what I think is coming to me. And I'll play it once. Whether it's being recorded or not, I can then usually remember it for a sometimes shocking amount of time.
I am still a student. My classmates study really hard, so I feel like I should too. But they always say things like: “You don't have to.”, “Aren't you busy?”, “Just give up, you have another way.”; But I don't think that's right. There's no reason for me to give up, I didn't quit high school.
Capitol Records were very keen for me to write and see how I got on; I think that is what defined my sound. The first session I had was with two young up-and-coming writers, Nick Atkinson and Tom Wilding, and I went into a session a bit nervous because I hadn't written that many songs before.
The adventure is when people don't know what they're doing at all. Like, I think that the first pop band to use synthesizers as their main instrument and take it seriously was probably Silver Apples. And they sure didn't know what they were doing, and they sure don't sound like anything else.