Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I love movies and I love art - and an architect is an entertainer, the guy who builds a rollercoaster is an entertainer. He knows where to build the slopes, and the big anticipation when you go up... He makes you go, 'Oh my God!' when you get to the top before you come down. It's just the same as structuring a show or a dance.
I believe that the role of limited government should be looking after the needs of veterans, the elderly, children and those institutions that improve the quality of life for struggling families - I don't believe that government should bend to serve the needs of subsidized multi-national corporations and entitled billionaires.
You have to be true, you have to be honest.. Don't do anything, just figure out what it is that is true to you, what makes you happiest to do and be out there. And if it doesn't work, then you just have to call it a day and go find something else. But don't make it up. Don't go out there and pretend to be something you aren't.
I've been a huge fan of Gaga since she first burst on the scene. I just love everything that lady represents. First and foremost, her voice is extraordinary. I love her voice. She's an accomplished musician. She plays piano really well. She's just a great songwriter. And she's a beacon of hope for a lot of people in the world.
I create my own schedule, so you start out each day and you say, "Okay, from 10 to 11 I'm going to write," and on the dot at 10, I went downstairs, got dressed like I was going to work, and at 11 I stopped. I don't know why, what kind of wizardry about that worked, but having the structure for a month, I was dishing out songs.
Usually when I'm in the van or if there's downtime, I'll just mess around in Garage Band and work out melodies or ideas I've had in my head. There was a period where I creatively plateaued and wasn't writing at all. But I have been creatively a bit more inspired lately - it has everything to do with moving and being in motion.
With your face and your beautiful eyes and the coversations with the little white lies and the faded picture of a beautiful lie you carry me from your car up the stairs,and I broke down crying was she worth this mess? After everything and that little black dress.After everything i must confess...I need you <3'':) -Taylor Swift
Unfortunately, I made the mistake at one point of putting my address on the back of one of my albums, just to find out what would happen. I received a lot of disturbing mail and calls. Actually, I was living in a hotel, so it was easy enough to find the number. I got a kick out of it for a while. Then I realized what I'd done.
I think when people think of music from coming from Oklahoma, they think of Toby Keith or even Garth Brooks or even Woody Guthrie. People think, "Why do we have to just be about the Bible and about football? Why can't we be about something like the Flaming Lips?" And I salute them! I say, "Well, that's great if you want that."
Songs come from all over the place. You can't predict what you're going to like. You might like something that doesn't fit right now. What was working for you at one point, something you've loved for years and years, when you get together with everybody, you think, this doesn't match up with what's going on with you personally.
A lot of people don't know what I do. In the industry they take credit for work because to some degree it makes them feel worthy or greater. I am not a ghostwriter 'cause it is on the CD covers who wrote and did what but people don't care about anything they can't see. The work gets unnoticed and the credibility goes untouched.
I work in bits and pieces. When I'm touring it's difficult. After touring, when I have space and time, it's a process, something I've been doing since I was 10 or 11 years old. I collect lyrics, melodies, bits and pieces, and finally it all comes together. It's hard to say - I've been trying to figure out how the process works.
Thanks to capitalism, the importance placed on beauty has never been so manipulated. We are the guinea pigs force-fed ads that tell us how pathetic we are: that we will never be loved, happy or valuable unless we have the body, the face, the hair, even the personality that will apparently be ours, if only we buy their products.
I think I was probably looking for gay role models when I was younger, before I even knew or thought I was gay. I didn't really make the connection that they were gay, but I felt drawn to them because they were going against the grain, and I knew there was something that they had that everybody else didn't have. It was an edge.
I think there are a lot of artists that are very traditional. I think someone can be a fan of someone like Josh Turner and then turn around and be a big fan of someone like Taylor Swift because, at the end of the day, it's all about those songs. I feel like country music has the best songwriting and the best songs of any genre.
I really believe that the more distractions and fixes I remove from my life, the better I'll feel about myself. The biggest of those is Depeche Mode. It's the one marriage that survived, but I'm not sure it works - for me, anyway. Jumping on a plane to go somewhere else and be told how wonderful I am doesn't feel good any more.
I've done things that can be made fun of. It's not such a bad thing. If I'm going to end up a role model, then I'd rather not end up being the kind of role model that pretends to be perfect, and pretends that she always has the right thing to say. I'm a product of role models that didn't make me feel like I was as good as them.
Years from now, years and years, one of those ships will bring me back, me and my nine Brazilian brats. Because yes, they must see this, these lights, the river -- I love New York, even though it isn't mine, the way something has to be, a tree or a street or a house, something, anyway, that belongs to me because I belong to it.
The fact is when I get pissed off about something or something awful has happened, I just say, 'You know what? Thank you very much. Thank you for the lyrics. Because that is exactly what you just gave me.' There's no real negative then. So if something happens, I don't cry about it. I just find myself a pen and I figure it out.
Making my last record, Warrior, was a pretty miserable process, and it wore my spirit down. I was fighting like hell to keep my whole irreverent essence and everything raw and visceral that I stand for in it, but in the end I was promoting something that wasn't the animal I wanted it to be. I decided to face my problem head-on.
I'm by no means a pianist. I think that's safe to say, but the piano, for me, I would say it's the enabler. It gave me what I needed and gives me what I need in order to write a song. And I think playing or improvising on the piano is where I feel most liberated and sort of less conscious of all my insecurities or inadequacies.
My hobbies are random. One week I want to exercise, one week I just want to eat all day. One week I'm going out every night and the next week I'm totally locked in my house, not going anywhere. I'm a little bit all over the place, socially. I don't have another passion or hobby - it's really music. I'm in the studio constantly.
I am attracted to a thug. I like that quality, but I like the other side of it, too. Because all guys who go around behaving in macho ways are really scared little girls. So you have to look beneath the surface. There's a difference between my ideal man and a man that I'm sexually attracted to, believe me. Therein lies the rub.
As long as I focus on what I feel and don't worry about where I'm going, it works out. Having no expectations but being open to everything is what makes wonderful things happen. If I don't worry, there's no obstruction and life flows easily. It sounds impractical, but 'Expect nothing; be open to everything' is really all it is.
I am scared of my father to this day. My father walked in the room - and God knows I am telling the truth - I have fainted in his presence many times. I have fainted once to be honest. I have thrown up in his presence because when he comes in the room and this aura comes and my stomach starts hurting and I know I am in trouble.
I think I've grown up in a mixed environment, and maybe a lot of the time I haven't really belonged anywhere in the way I've dreamt of belonging to, you know, living on the street and playing to all the kids on the street, growing up together. I suppose 'Raw Like Sushi' was a place where all of those things could come together.
The problem with an autobiography is that all these extra factors make it difficult. You don't want to hurt people's feelings. You don't know how much you can trust your memory. You don't want it to be self-serving. And you have all these issues about how to present yourself. All these factors make it harder to do than a novel.
Our heavenly Father is more liberal in His views, and boundless in His mercies and blessings, than we are ready to believe or receive; and at the same time more terrible to the workers of iniquity, more awful in the executions of His punishments, and more ready to detect in every false way, than we are apt to suppose Him to be.
I talk very slow. I move very slow. I definitely have that Southern drawl and although I never necessarily participated in the activities that go along with screw. I definitely was a huge fan of screw. Because melodically, I don't ever really sing very staccato or very fast. It's really about a groove; it's really about a vibe.
I never really had any grand aspirations of mainstream country success because I know what that entails, and I'd probably be too much trouble for people to work with. If I can just reach the point where I can get 200 or 300 people in small clubs and I'm carving out enough money to pay my bills, then I'm the happiest guy I know.
I grew up listening to everything. I was in rock n' roll bands and punk bands, and I loved bluegrass and country music, too. Then, when I moved to Nashville, I put out a very traditional country record because that's just what you do. I had a bunch of very traditional country songs. Next thing you know, you're a country singer.
Some of my music requires an obsessive-compulsive approach and a real embodiment of excessiveness. So I really have to live in that world of overstimulation. Sometimes I think it's like a drug; more is more, and you can never get enough. The older I get, the more I crave that excessive aesthetic. It's never going to satisfy me.
Let's be honest. You let yourself be pulled in because it felt good to be wanted, needed. But then it went too far, as projected images always do. If it's not a real image, but one that has been projected on to you, then you can keep up the masquerade for only so long before the mask cracks and the paint on the mask peels away.
I like to find the beauty in the ugly. When I'm in a thrift store, I gravitate toward pieces I know I'll wear a ton, and insane pieces that I'm sure most people would consider gross. But I find them inspiring. Our van is currently stocked with some of my random findings from this tour. Maybe I'll call my aesthetic 'van fashion.
I honestly really, really love Topshop. I've bought a lot of booties from there. I think they have a great selection of really funky booties at Topshop. My splurge would be a pair of leather Christian Louboutin over-the-knee boots. They're sick! I would do a really stretchy skinny jean under a black turtleneck and call it a day!
I have been accused of having people design my image, tell me what to say in interviews, design my clothes, the way I look and talk, and, of course, my music. It's true I do work with people, but not to accomplish anything bad: just the basics that any person does in this business and with this opportunity to live out my dreams.
When the movies first started, audiences were dumbstruck to see actresses walking around in evening gowns. They'd never seen anything like that. They wanted to be like those actors and actresses, so the movies informed their behavior. A lot of people started drinking martinis and smoking cigarettes because they felt it was cool.
A flight from London carrying the artist we all used to know as Cat Stevens, now known as Yusuf Islam, was forced to make an emergency landing in Bangor, Maine after his name showed up on a terrorist no-fly list. I tell you, it's a real success story in the war on terror. You know, we finally got the guy that wrote "Peace Train.
We love all kinds of music: We love pop music, we love rock music, we love R & B and country, and we just pull from all our influences. So I don't really take offense as long as people are coming out to the shows and buying the records and becoming fans of the music. At the end of the day, the music is what's gonna speak to you.
Taking a song and bringing it to life in a professional recording studio can be an intimidating process at first; I know it certainly was for me. So to be able to offer support and guidance to an emerging singer-songwriter is a huge honor. I look forward to playing a role in such an exciting time of someone's songwriting career.
Every time I finish a song... most of the time it's in my own head, like this sounds too much like a Townes Van Zandt song, or whoever. I realize there are so many melodies and chord progressions in pop and rock music that are so similar that you can kind of trace it back to other things. Most of the time it's just in your head.
What happened on "As Cool As I Am" was, you know how in the `90s, "the personal is political, the political is personal"? That was a really big thing. Choices you made about how you recorded and what instruments you used and how much real versus how much synthetic. Those were choices that were seen as very political at the time.
Halloween is huge in my house and we really get into the 'spirits' of things. A few years back, my wife was frustrated with the same old stupid sound effects tape we would play, which ends with the theme from 'Ghostbusters' and 'Monster Mash'. I told her that Halloween is way too cool a holiday to suffer through this every year.
Every performance is different. There are so many factors involved... the people I've met that day, the weather, the city I'm in, conversations, sleep, mood, everything. However, there are many nights when the stars align and I feel like both the story teller and the stranger in the crowd, hearing it all for the very first time.
I started getting these attacks in 2009, just as my music career was taking off. I'd be doing photo-shoots and started to feel like I was having heart attacks. Increasingly I found it difficult to step outside my flat. Things started to get better after I saw a therapist, who told me I needed to make peace with my panic attacks.
I have always loved fashion because it's a great way to express your mood. And I'm definitely a shoe lover. The right pair of shoes can change the feel of an outfit, and even change how a woman feels about herself. A woman can wear confidence on her feet with a high stiletto, or slip into weekend comfort with a soft ballet flat.
It's weird not having companionship and not having somebody to talk to. I have two goldfish in my hotel room. They said, "If you would like companionship, we can bring you a goldfish." I was like, "Bring me a goldfish!" I have two because when I needed the water changed they brought another one. I was like, "Don't take Desmond!"
Before the show, we see all these radio people, and most of them say, 'Garth, you're a lot calmer than I thought you were gonna be.' But when the members of the band give one another that handshake, and the lights go out, and the crowd goes up, then you're sliding into the elevator, man, your heart is just going bopbopbopbopbop.
In writing lyrics - well, for me, anyway - it's about getting into character, you know? 'Who is writing this?' In the case of the original 'Thick As A Brick,' supposedly a precocious, very young child who's fantasizing about his future and the context of all the confusing elements to which school boys are subjected at that time.
I think all of us thought that by the '70s, at the latest the '80s, all the world's problems would be solved and everyone would be getting along fine. And instead we saw that Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated that year, Robert F. Kennedy died. We saw that it was going to be a lot more difficult than I think we had thought.