Quotes

“When you think about it, Adolf Hitler was the first pop star.” David Bowie

“Funk, I don't think I have anything to do with funk. I've never considered myself funky.” David Bowie

“I don't have stylistic loyalty. That's why people perceive me changing all the time. But there is a real continuity in my subject matter. As an artist of artifice, I do believe I have more integrity than any one of my contemporaries.” David Bowie

“I had to resign myself, many years ago, that I'm not too articulate when it comes to explaining how I feel about things. But my music does it for me, it really does.” David Bowie

“I believe that I often bring out the best in somebody's talents.” David Bowie

“I felt I really wanted to back off from music completely and just work within the visual arts in some way. I started painting quite passionately at that time.” David Bowie

“I think it all comes back to being very selfish as an artist. I mean, I really do just write and record what interests me and I do approach the stage shows in much the same way.” David Bowie

“I re-invented my image so many times that I'm in denial that I was originally an overweight Korean woman.” David Bowie

“I'm just an individual who doesn't feel that I need to have somebody qualify my work in any particular way. I'm working for me.” David Bowie

“Pixies and Sonic Youth were so important to the eighties.” David Bowie

“Questioning my spiritual life has always been germane to what I was writing. Always. It's because I'm not quite an atheist and it worries me. There's that little bit that holds on: 'Well, I'm almost an atheist. Give me a couple of months.'” David Bowie

“Sometimes you stumble across a few chords that put you in a reflective place.” David Bowie

“But I'm pretty good with collaborative thinking. I work well with other people.” David Bowie

“But I've got to think of myself as the luckiest guy. Robert Johnson only had one album's worth of work as his legacy. That's all that life allowed him.” David Bowie

“Fame can take interesting men and thrust mediocrity upon them.” David Bowie

“However, there's no theme or concept behind Heathen, just a number of songs but somehow there is a thread that runs through it that is quite as strong as any of my thematic type albums.” David Bowie

“I rate Morrissey as one of the best lyricists in Britain. For me, he's up there with Bryan Ferry.” David Bowie

“I suppose for me as an artist it wasn't always just about expressing my work; I really wanted, more than anything else, to contribute in some way to the culture that I was living in. It just seemed like a challenge to move it a little bit towards the way I thought it might be interesting to go.” David Bowie

“I'm very at ease, and I like it. I never thought I would be such a family-oriented guy; I didn't think that was part of my makeup. But somebody said that as you get older you become the person you always should have been, and I feel that's happening to me. I'm rather surprised at who I am, because I'm actually like my dad!” David Bowie

“I've never responded well to entrenched negative thinking.” David Bowie

“Music itself is going to become like running water or electricity. So it's like, just take advantage of these last few years because none of this is ever going to happen again. You'd better be prepared for doing a lot of touring because that's really the only unique situation that's going to be left.” David Bowie

“Since the departure of good old-fashioned entertainers the re-emergence of somebody who wants to be an entertainer has unfortunately become a synonym for camp. I don't think I'm camper than any other person who felt at home on stage, and felt more at home on stage than he did offstage.” David Bowie

“There's a schizoid streak within the family anyway so I dare say that I'm affected by that. The majority of the people in my family have been in some kind of mental institution, as for my brother he doesn't want to leave. He likes it very much.” David Bowie

“There, in the chords and melodies, is everything I want to say. The words just jolly it along. It's always been my way of expressing what for me is inexpressible by any other means.” David Bowie

“And I saw the sax line-up that he had behind him and I thought, I'm going to learn the saxophone. When I grow up, I'm going to play in his band. So I sort of persuaded my dad to get me a kind of a plastic saxophone on the hire purchase plan.” David Bowie

“I don't profess to have music as my big wheel and there are a number of other things as important to me apart from music. Theatre and mime, for instance.” David Bowie

“I never could get over the fact that The Pixies formed, worked and separated without America taking them to its heart or even recognizing their existence for the most part.” David Bowie

“I realized the other day that I've lived in New York longer than I've lived anywhere else. It's amazing: I am a New Yorker. It's strange; I never thought I would be.” David Bowie

“I wanted to prove the sustaining power of music.” David Bowie

“I went through all the musicians in my life who I admire as bright, intelligent, virtuosic players.” David Bowie