Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I have a lot of friends who have hula-hoops, it's like a mixture of dance and athletics and exercise, meditation. It's a healthy hobby I think. I can do a few tricks, I can hoop from my neck and shoulders, and I can do a few moves, a few tricks! I can walk through the hoop whilst it's spinning. I feel like there's definitely an interest in promoting the hula-hoop as an important pastime!
I can't remember ever being really bored. I find life very interesting, actually. I think some other musicians are always looking for something to give them an idea, but I find I have to reject 90 percent of my ideas because they don't live up to some self-imposed standard. That's also why I don't make a record once a year. I throw so many things out, and I have to have something to say.
The devaluation of music and what it's now deemed to be worth is laughable to me. My single costs 99 cents. That's what a single cost in 1960. On my phone, I can get an app for 99 cents that makes fart noises - the same price as the thing I create and speak to the world with. Some would say the fart app is more important. It's an awkward time. Creative brains are being sorely mistreated.
My own personal tastes don't really have an effect on whether song is a parody target or not. But having said that, I try to pick songs that I actually like because I realize that I have to live with these songs for a long time, from when I'm working on them in the studio to possibly playing them onstage for the rest of my life. So I try not to pick songs that I know would drive me crazy.
I was able to come up with a couple articles for the magazine, I was able to solicit help from a bunch of my friends to contribute pieces: Patton Oswalt, Seth Green, Emo Phillips, Chris Hardwick, John Hodgman, and more. It's very much a "Weird Al" themed issue, so I'd like to think that there's a lot of "Weird Al" flavor throughout but I think it'd be generous really to call me an editor.
I realized that the reason why my head was so cluttered and why I was so unstable and not taking care of myself, all of these things, was that I was unhappy. If I wanted to get to a happier place and find some kind of peace, I was going to have to address problems with myself, things from my life up until that point that I hadn't dealt with: insecurities, fears, and those kinds of things.
God is okay. He's got big shoulders. He's okay with our - with our questioning and our - you know, I think the bigger the question, the bigger the answer, you know? It may be sickness, it may be loss, it may be disappointment, but sometimes you feel like heaven's silent, that "God, how-how can this be love?" But actually, if you go back to the Word, you know, it just underpins everything.
I hate having my photograph taken and I try to keep that in mind when I'm photographing other people. But the best photos that I've taken are the ones when people have forgotten that I'm there. If I'm in a recording studio with a musician, for example, maybe I'm not photographing them in the middle of a take but I can just get that stolen moment of them resting and they glance over to me.
I am not a huge fan of the Celtic Tiger; I was so glad that you could see people being prosperous, that you didn't see people begging, that the city started looking good, that people had jobs. But it was almost like if you have such a hard time for so long, then you turn around and give a kid a check for a million quid, they're going to go nuts. And we went a bit nuts, we went up our ass.
I set myself a rule before I actually write a tune to the lyrics, and the rule is that I've got to take the lyrics on to a level of understanding before I can actually write music to them. What I'm doing is interpretation. If I don't write the lyrics, therefore I must interpret them to the best of my ability. So my rule is that I must understand it, but I don't necessarily have to accept.
There exists a mountain of circumstantial evidence that consciousness survives bodily death. This is the kind of evidence that would stand up in a court of law. Some people believe that science needs better tools to quantify what consciousness is. Perhaps when we discover what consciousness is we will be on the road to providing absolute scientific evidence that there is life after death.
I do think I go out of my way to be a very normal person and I just find it frustrating that people think that I'm some kind of weirdo reclusive that never comes out into the world. Y'know, I'm a very strong person and I think that's why actually I find it really infuriating when I read, 'She had a nervous breakdown' or 'She's not very mentally stable, just a weak, frail little creature'.
There is one tradition in America I am proud to inherit. It is our first freedom and the truest expression of our Americanism: the ability to dissent without fear. It is our right to utter the words, 'I disagree.' We must feel at liberty to speak those words to our neighbors, our clergy, our educators, our news media, our lawmakers and, above all, to the one among us we elect - President.
For a female to write about her feelings, and then be portrayed as some clingy, insane, desperate girlfriend in need of making you marry her and have kids with her, I think that's taking something that potentially should be celebrated - a woman writing about her feelings in a confessional way - that's taking it and turning it and twisting it into something that is frankly a little sexist.
I call that god the Little G. Because the god that we've been worshipping is not to me the Supreme Creator. Anybody who needs to control and make people feel ashamed. . .It's like, 'I send my only begotten son. . .' Well you know, that concept of sending a son where we as women could, like, breastfeed him and give him milk, but he's not gonna soil his dinky with us? What's that all about?
Being in worship and declaring you know, the truth of scripture through song and, you know, because music gathers all of who you are, it helps you in your auditory senses, it helps you scientifically. It says it helps you at a molecular level and, so doing all these things and then declaring the living word of God, I mean, there's nothing quite like it when you're hanging on for your life.
I was born in an odd spot and was a very sensitive kid. My feelings could get hurt so easily because I always wanted to be loved, I wanted to be touched, I wanted to touch somebody. I wanted everybody to love me, so I think I was louder than I should have been. I was just trying to get attention. I always felt like I was somebody special, maybe it's because I needed to be somebody special.
I don't want to make this sound negative at all, but in the best way possible I freaking give up. I give up. You can't try and make your life perfect. I'm just trying to have a good time, and I'm just trying to appreciate the things that I have around me. I give up on the 'dream' dream. I think that it's all a dream. I think it's all wonderful and terrible. And I give up in the nicest way.
Musically, though, you're a character and you're singing a song. If you're not your own character, you're the character in the song, most of the time. Even blues musicians, a lot of them who were the most realistic, at times, they were singing a song and portraying a character in the song. There's something to be said for getting involved in the emotion of a song, too, with the characters.
I was quite naïve, a boy from Southport. When I went to art college in Leeds, I lived in a basement flat, and I heard clunking on the stairs all night, and I thought it was just nurses going to work on the night shift at the local hospital! Then I found out it was all working girls upstairs. I suppose I came from a protected background and had my eyes opened wide by that side of city life.
The magic, the wonder, the mystery and the innocence of a childs heart are the seeds of creativity that will heal the world. I really believe that. What we need to learn from children isnt childish. Being with them connects us to the deeper wisdom of life, which is everpresent and only asks to be lived. They know the way to solutions that lie waiting to be recognized within our own hearts.
You know, where have you - what have you been doing? You know, and you find yourself sitting next to Jesus, and he's rather an agreeable man. And you have an opportunity to say, so what went down then, you know, that night? And it's supposed to be like him just sort of telling you very conversationally. That was the idea I had. Whether it - whether it comes - came off or not, I don't know.
I was at one of the lowest points of my life when we started this film [Dream of Life], except, of course, that I had two great children. But the film is not documenting a decline; it's documenting a rise up - first baby steps and then big steps up. The worst that could have ever happened to me had already happened. And so the film is on the ascent. And I think that gives it a nice spirit.
We made our debut in Japan about few years ago and when we went on a morning show there to promote our album, I did a brief interview in Japanese using simple expressions such as "Yoroshiku onegaishimasu." But one of the members of our group said, "Stay quiet if you can't speak Japanese! It's embarrassing!" So that's when I told myself that I'd show how good I am by studying Japanese hard.
It was an honor to work with Samantha Morton on this Casablanca-esque, silent-film-esque, Americana photobooth Woolworth's hay day period piece of surrealism/ realism/ story time tell-tale-ism, black and white 35 mm film, washed in strange light, over this love hate tune, heartbreak song, life-goes-on lullaby, The Last Goodbye. It's a doorway into the future of the fatal past-tense. Get it?
You can do anything you put your mind to. I believe in all of you. Never doubt yourself, even if everyone around you is doubting you. Stand tall. Prove them all wrong.Each and every one of you have something amazingly special about you and don’t let anyone tell you any different. Thank you for being my fans.. and my friends. Thank you for giving me a reason to sing. Thank you for being you.
I never had that desire to start or join a rock band. Nor did I ever have a desire to see my idols in concert. I would have loved to see The Cure. I didn't understand the whole concept of: you love music, you buy the album, and then you go see them in concert. It felt like something that was so untouchable that I didn't even attempt to try and bring it to any place other than my headphones.
When I meet someone, I look at their eyes and their smile and seek out the good first - it's easy to find when you're looking for it. You let a person shine with their own light and try to connect it to yours. As soon as I say hello, I go right to that light and I don't care who you are! I know we're all pieces of the same thing - I go for that common light because I know it's in all of us.
Cause I am strong and I can prove it And I got my dreams to see me through It's just a mountain, I can move it And with faith enough there's nothing I can't do And I can see the light of a clear blue morning And I can see the light of brand new day I can see the light of a clear blue morning And everything's gonna be all right It's gonna be okay [lyrics from "Light of a Clear Blue Morning"]
The specter of color is apparent even when it goes unmentioned, and it is all too often the unseen force that influences public policy as well as private relationships. There is nothing more remarkable than the ingenuity that the various demarcations of the color line reflect. If only the same creative energy could be used to eradicate the color line; then its days would indeed be numbered.
Pretty much at the age of 16, I realized acting wasn't going to be the vocation for me...too political not enough creative control. But I loved the craft and my father wanted me to get a college degree. Seemed natural to study what I loved and Marymount Manhattan has a wonderful theatre program, I highly recommend it! A lot of what I learned there I apply to my comicbook writing and pacing.
I enjoy going on stage knowing that there's going to be that vulnerability and that transparency and hopefully things will be realized or accomplished or that confidence will be revealed. I think that's another element that people like about shows: in addition to hearing the songs that they love, I think there are some people who really get off on connecting with what's happening right now.
My mother always told me to embrace both sides of my background. And she also taught me one very useful thing when I was going to first grade. She said, "You're Bahamian and African-American on one side, and Russian-Jewish on the other. You're no more one than the other, and it's beautiful that you have all this. It makes your life all the more rich. But society will see you only as black."
I'm not the cool thing, and I'm not going to be the cool thing for a really long time, and it isn't like I'm not the cool thing and I sell 3,000,000 records every time. I'm not the cool thing, and I barely sell 150,000 records, if that, ever. So I'm obviously working really hard to sustain myself. I'm actually a target to be dropped, because that's just not enough records for a big company.
People are going to write and say things you don't like. They're going to take things out of context. What are you going to do? You can't let it destroy your life. That's their problem. They're going to go on and not be respected for what they do. Just worry about what you do. You have to make up your mind. You also have to be prepared for fallout. You have to accept the industry you're in.
I'm like the opposite of one of those comedians who's funny on stage and depressed behind closed doors . On record, I can get pretty dark, but in real life I'm very carefree. But when I'm happy, I ain't writing songs, I'm out having a laugh, being in love. I wouldn't have the time. If I ever get married, it'll be 'Darling, I need a divorce, it's been three years, I've got a record to write!'
There was an uncommon array of people in there [rehab] with me, and I became friends with all of them. You recognize the possibility of your own demise in the lives of these other people. You're doing the same thing they are, but you can't see it in yourself. However, you start seeing all of these tragedies and potential miracles in other people. It's a real eye- and heart-opening situation.
I'm actually a 'Witch' not Wiccan...justa Witch. I started reading Tarot when I was 8 years old. I dabble in astrology, Candle Magick, gems/stone Magick and I mainly use herbs for cooking. But cooking is it's own Magick-when done right. Actually, when I colour Tarot...I do use a form of Colour Magick..colours do influence mood...so I conscienciously choose certain colours for certain scenes.
Dreams last so long Even after you're gone I know you love me And soon you will see You were meant for me And I was meant for you Go about my business, I'm doing fine Besides, what would I say if I had you on the line Same old story, not much to say Hearts are broken every day I'm half alive but I feel mostly dead I try to tell myself it'll be all right I just shouldn't think anymore tonight
I think I have patient fans that want quality over quantity. It's more important to me that the project be the best that it can be and the realest it can be rather than rushing a whole bunch of generic songs, because I could do that. I could just put together some songs real quick that I really like. I only write and I only sing for a purpose, so if its not then, it's not going to be rushed.
Sam [Phillips] wanted I Walk The Line up - you know, up-tempo. And I put paper in the strings of my guitar to get that (vocalizing) sound, and with the bass and the lead guitar, there it was. Bare and stark, that song was when it was released. And I heard it on the radio and I really didn't like it, and I called Sam Phillips and asked him please not to send out any more records of that song.
When we talk about sin, we need to understand what sin is. Sin is not God says 'you can't do this' because He wants to take something away from you. He says: "If you do this, it will be death. If you do this, it will be life." And then He says: "Please, choose life, so that you can live. I've made you, I know how you work. I've made this whole Earth, I know how it works. Please, choose life.
I do see that the world that we live in is collapsing to a certain extent, and civilization as we know it is caving in on itself. I believe that we are at a very low level of consciousness, and we do not know how to treat each other as human beings. We are caught up in our own lives, our own needs, our own ego gratification. I feel a strong sense of responsibility in delivering that message.
When I originally wrote "Jealousy," it was more like an exercise to try to write a girl-group kind of pop song. It was really contrary to most of the material I'd ever written. I didn't pay much attention to the song after I'd recorded it. I didn't really perform it at all the last 20 years. When it came time to make the new record, I decided to make peace with the song and have fun with it.
I feel we all have the obligation, myself. I want to live in a more humane, civilized society, and I feel like the only way we're going to achieve that is if we all take it upon ourselves. I just wish we could be a more caring society. I feel like we're social Darwinists who believe that everyone has to make it on their own. But the reality is that we all don't start out on the same footing.
"I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day," which I actually recorded on "Quality Street" because I don't think anyone has ever covered it before. You hear it every single Christmas, and it is a great record. That's by Wizzard. It is a really great record, but I don't think anyone's ever covered it before, so I had to go it doing it differently. It's quite different from how the original goes.
It's almost is like God, in our case, gave us a shot of anesthesia, you know, to your body and to your heart in a way, that you can survive. That you're - there's enough of a numbness, you're very much alive and very aware of eternity, I mean, Heaven and the real world there. I talk a lot about how Heaven's never been more clear to me. I've never been more sure that we are made for eternity.
I have a really good relationship with my label and with people I've worked with since I was younger. I've always had a really good relationship, with both men and women. I think, for me, the way I face sexism in the music industry is when people are like, "Oh, she must not write her own music." That's frustrating, in a way. But it's cool. I'm mostly just like, "Meh." I'm just doing my thing.
Every once in a while I'll say something...I dropped the F-bomb early on in my career. There was this lesbian couple and they looked super-hip. One of them looked at me and shook her head, like "Don't do that." I think she was doing it to say, "It doesn't work." She didn't say anything but it was this cautionary moment. I knew it didn't work. There are just so many other words to choose from.
It's so hard for me to even acknowledge America without talking about race. If you look at our society, if you look at the prisons, if you look at the poverty and which side of the line the majority of people are, we have to acknowledge how we divide ourselves up, that there's racism alive in this country. And it's not in the law. It's in our minds. And that's what we have to actively battle.