Quotes By David Bowie

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

Fame can take interesting men and thrust mediocrity upon them.

The truth is of course is that there is no journey. We are arriving and departing all at the same time.

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.

Frankly, I mean, sometimes the interpretations I've seen on some of the songs that I've written are a lot more interesting than the input that I put in.

I believe that I often bring out the best in somebody's talents.

I always had a repulsive need to be something more than human.

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.

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.

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

I've made over 25 studio albums, and I think probably I've made two real stinkers in my time, and some not-bad albums, and some really good albums. I'm proud of what I've done. In fact it's been a good ride.

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.

I'm not a prophet or a stone aged man, just a mortal with potential of a superman. I'm living on.

I'm in awe of the universe, but I don't necessarily believe there's an intelligence or agent behind it. I do have a passion for the visual in religious rituals, though, even though they may be completely empty and bereft of substance. The incense is powerful and provocative, whether Buddhist or Catholic.

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.

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.

Confront a corpse at least once. The absolute absence of life is the most disturbing and challenging confrontation you will ever have.

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.

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.

Radio in England is nonexistent. It's very bad English use of a media system, typically English use.

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.

There's a good television programme called 'Disco 2.' It's quite good but again it's average, average. It's all on a down play. You know we've got this thing in England to be hip is to speak very down - like John Peel. And that just about sums up England. They don't realize when they talk like that, then that is what they represent - absolutely.

The absolute transformation of everything that we ever thought about music will take place within 10 years, and nothing is going to be able to stop it. I see absolutely no point in pretending that it's not going to happen. I'm fully confident that copyright, for instance, will no longer exist in 10 years.

When you think about it, Adolf Hitler was the first pop star.

It would be my guess that Madonna is not a very happy woman. From my own experience, having gone through persona changes like that, that kind of clawing need to be the center of attention is not a pleasant place to be.

I think Mick Jagger would be astounded and amazed if he realized that to many people he is not a sex symbol, but a mother image.

I don't know where I'm going from here, but I promise it won't be boring.

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.

As you get older, the questions come down to about two or three. How long? And what do I do with the time I've got left?

I wanted to prove the sustaining power of music.