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Actually, My Ambition At Eight Or Nine Years Old Was To Be One Of Little Richard's Sax Players, And That's When I Got My First Saxophone, A Selmer. It Was A Strange Bakelite Material - That Creamy Plastic With All The Gold Keys On It. I Had To Get A Job As A Butcher's Delivery Boy To Start Paying For It.

-David Bowie

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Actually, My Ambition At

David Bowie

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Actually, My Ambition At Eight Or Nine Years Old Was To Be One Of Little Richard's Sax Players, And That's When I Got My First Saxophone, A Selmer. It Was A Strange Bakelite Material - That Creamy Plastic With All The Gold Keys On It. I Had To Get A Job As A Butcher's Delivery Boy To Start Paying For It.

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You Should Turn Around At The End Of The Day And Say I Really Like That Piece Of Work, Or That Piece Of Work Sucked. Not, Was That Popular Or Wasn't It Popular?

The End Of The Day

I Could Never, Ever Talk To My Father. I Really Loved Him, But We Couldn't Talk About Anything Together. There Was This Really British Thing That Being Even Remotely Emotional Was Absolutely Verboten.

I Just Tried Everything Out - I Mean, Everything. Even My Sexual Orientation; I Was Just Searching For What I Really Wanted. And I Didn't Quite Know.

I Met My Wife Because We Were Both Going Out With The Same Guy.

Elvis Was A Major Hero Of Mine. I Was Probably Stupid Enough To Believe That Having The Same Birthday As Him Actually Meant Something.

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.

I Just Put Drugs Down To Luck. I Persevere Quite Honestly, And I've Got A Fair Amount Of Discipline That Keeps Me Out Of Deep Water.

I'm Really Quite Bipolar, And The Depressed Times, When Everything Felt Like Night, Sometimes You Get To Such A Low Point That You Physically Beat At It Until It Bleeds - As You Would Say - Bleeds Till Sunshine.

Hitler Was The First Superstar.

If I Wasn't Going Through A Thing Where I Was Also Being My Characters Offstage, Uh, I'm Much Happier Just Wearing The Most Low-profile Things That I Can Come Up With Just So I Can Get Down The Street.

I Never Really Had Much Of An Interest In Fashion.

Time May Change Me, But I Can't Trace Time.

I Believe That I Often Bring Out The Best In Somebody's Talents.

Feeling So Gay, Feeling So Gay.

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.

I'm An Instant Star. Just Add Water And Stir.

I Think I Am A Lot More Relaxed About What I Have Or Haven't Done.

If It Works, It's Out Of Date.

The Name Bowie Just Appealed To Me When I Was Younger. I Was Into A Kind Of Heavy Philosophy Thing When I Was 16 Years Old, And I Wanted A Truism About Cutting Through The Lies And All That.

I Went To A Middle-class School, But My Background Is Working Class. I Got The Best Of Both Worlds, I Saw Both Classes, So I Have A Pretty Fair Idea Of How People Live And Why They Do It.

I'm Always Amazed That People Take What I Say Seriously. I Don't Even Take What I Am Seriously.

Strung Out On Lasers And Slash Back Blazers.

Mine Is Really - Ziggy Stardust, Characters, "let's Dance." That's Me In The American.

We Can't Stop Trying Til We Break Up Our Minds, Til The Sun Drips Blood On The Seedy Young Knight.

I Thought That I Could Do Some Kind Of Vehicle Involving Rock Musicals And Presenting Rock And Characters And Storyline In A Completely Different Fashion.

Keep Your 'lectric Eye On Me Babe Put Your Ray Gun To My Head Press Your Space Face Close To Mine, Love Freak Out In A Moonage Daydream, Oh Yeah!

It Is Amazing How A New Child Can Refocus One's Direction Seconds After Its Birth. Everything Falls Into A Feeling Of 'rightness'.

People Don't Get A Chance To Think, "why Am I A Consumer?" Because The Decisions Come At Them So Fast And Furiously, They're Not [even] Given Time To Think, I Am A Consumer.

Secret Thinker Sometimes Listening Aloud.

Songwriting As An Art Is A Bit Archaic Now. Just Writing A Song Is Not Good Enough.

I Think That My Fascination With Clothes Generally Was Motivated By Trying To Create The Characters For The Stage.

Hear This Robert Zimmerman, I Wrote A Song For You, About A Strange Young Man Called Dylan With A Voice Like Sand And Glue.

Speak In Extremes, It'll Save You Time.

Money Goes To Money Heaven, Body Goes To Body Hell.

Strangely, Some Songs You Really Don't Want To Write.

I'm Quite Certain That The Audience That I've Got For My Stuff Don't Listen To The Lyrics.

Some Of Us, I Think, Us Small, Pompous Arty Ones Probably Read Too Much George Steiner And Kind Of Got The Idea That We Were Entering To This Kind Of Post-culture Age And That We'd Better Do Something Postmodernist - Quickly, Before Somebody Else Did.

Pop Stars Are Capable Of Growing Old. Mick Jagger At 50 Will Be Marvelous - A Battered Old Roue - I Can Just See Him. An Aging Rock Star Doesn't Have To Opt Out Life. When I'm 50, I'll Prove It.

It's Odd But Even When I Was A Kid, I Would Write About 'old And Other Times' As Though I Had A Lot Of Years Behind Me. Now I Do, So There Is A Difference In The Weight Of Memory.

Confront A Corpse At Least Once. The Absolute Absence Of Life Is The Most Disturbing And Challenging Confrontation You Will Ever Have.

That's The Shock: All Cliches Are True. The Years Really Do Speed By. Life Really Is As Short As They Tell You It Is. And There Really Is A God - So Do I Buy That One? If All The Other Cliches Are True... Hell, Don't Pose Me That One.

It's Almost A Social Grace To Get Into The Art World, And I'm Very Wary Of It. Art Was Good In Berlin In The Late '70s - There Was A Lot More Guts To Art When The Neo-expressionists Were Starting Up; It Was Real Slapdash; It Has Real Heart To It - But It Seems So Cold And Heartless In America. It's A Buyer's Market.

It Is Entirely Possible To Create Something Totally Artificial Within The Realms Of Rock And Roll.

The Sun Machine Is Coming Down, And We're Gonna Have A Party.

The Public, Obviously, They Takes Things In A Very Simplest Fashion And So They Should. That's Why We Have Such Wonderful Television.

For Me A Chameleon Is Something That Disguises Itself To Look As Much Like Its Environment As Possible. I Always Thought I Did Exactly The Opposite Of That.

I Think Lindsay Kemp Really Introduced Me To The Work Of Jean Genet, And Through That, I Kind Of Kept Re-educating Myself About Other Prose Writers And Poets.

I Always Write Well In New York.

I Have A Very Strong Paternal Streak. I'm A Born Father...i Get Such Enjoyment Out Of Being With Children. Now They Are Enjoyable Little Things. They Really Are. I Like Their Kind Of Humor. You Can Stuff All Your Punk Bands, Give Me Three Children Instead.

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.

If You Come From Art, You'll Always Be Art.

I Can Ask For Cigarettes In Every Language

I'm Gay And Always Have Been, Even When I Was David Jones.

Never Bored, So I'll Never Get Old

The Only Art I'll Ever Study Is Stuff I Can Steal From.

[david] Bowie's Last Album "blackstar" Featured Him Backed By A Jazz Quartet.

Having Not Really Written Any Generational Songs - I Think Maybe Two Or Three Of The Songs That I've Ever Written Have Any Bearing On The Age Of The Listener. My Stuff Tends To Be Far More Concerned With The Spiritual And With Subjects Like Isolation And Being Miserable.

I Think A Lot Of That Album ["tonight" ] Is Still Very Good . . . The Songs, But I Think I Was Indifferent To The Arrangements.

I'm Afraid Of Americans.

I'm Not At Ease With The Word "love."

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.

I Think The First Experience Scared The Hell Out Of Me. Within Months Of My Initial Marriage [on Angela Bowie], I Realized I Had Done A Really Naive And Rather Stupid Thing. . . . I Don't Think Either Of Us Had Any Real Resolve About Being Together. The Result Was It Made Me Wary Of Relationships.

I Think That We Have Created A New Kind Of Person In A Way. We Have Created A Child Who Will Be So Exposed To The Media That He Will Be Lost To His Parents By The Time He Is 12.

I Hate Albums That Are Really Happy. When I Am Really Happy, I Don't Like To Hear Happy Albums, And When I Am Really Sad I Don't Wanna Hear Happy Albums... And I Tend To Gravitate Towards The Lonely And Isolated Anyway When I Write.

I'll Stick With You Baby For A Thousand Years.

I Wanted To Prove The Sustaining Power Of Music.

It's A Compulsive Need To Wreck Everything. You Might Notice There's A Pattern Of Stripping Down And Building Back Up Again Throughout My Life. But I Guess That's How Some Of Us Conduct Our Lives.

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.

I Haven't Changed My Views Much Since I Was About 12, Really, I've Just Got A 12-year-old Mentality.when I Was In School I Had A Brother Who Was Into Kerouac And He Gave Me On The Road To Read When I Was 12 Years Old. That's Still Been A Big Influence.

We Were Terribly Excited, And I Think We Took It On Our Shoulders That We Were Creating The 21st Century In 1971. That Was The Idea. And We Wanted To Just Blast Everything In The Past, Rather Like The Vorticists Did At The Beginning Of The Century In The Britain Or The Dadaists Did Europe, You Know. It Was The Same Sensibility Of Everything Is Rubbish, And All Rubbish Is Wonderful.

My Son's Full Real Name Is Duncan Zowie Haywood. As A Toddler He Was Called By His Second Name Zowie. But It Was Such An Identifiable Name During The Seventies That If I Called Him Loudly In Public Places, Everyone Would Turn To Stare, So I Started Calling Him Joey To Take The Pressure Off. It Has The Same Sound And Number Of Syllables As Zowie. And Joe Stuck For Most Of His Childhood. Now He Has Reverted To His Real Name, Duncan. Haywood Was My Father's Name.

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.

Ground Control To Major Tom.

My Father Worked For A Children's Home Called Dr. Barnardo's Homes. They're A Charity.

I Got A Bad Migraine That Lasted 3 Years, And The Pills I Took Made By Fingers Disappear.

My Particular Thing Is Discovering What Can Be Done With Media And How It Can Be Used. You Can't Draw People Together Like One Big Huge Family, People Don't Want That. They Want Isolation Or A Tribal Thing.

This Is A Mad Planet," David Bowie Said In 1971. "it's Doomed To Madness.

You Can't Stand Still On One Point For Your Entire Life.

There's Something About The Style Of Living In The Country That They Feel, "this Is What Represents Me." So Style Is About The Philosophy Of How We Create Our Civilization.

You Can't Put Down Anybody. You Can Just Try And Understand. The Emphasis Shouldn't Be On Revolution, It Should Be On Communication. Because It's Just Going To Get More Uptight. The More The Revolution Goes On, And There Will Be A Civil War Sooner Or Later.

No More Free Steps To Heaven.

I Have Found Myself Deeply, Deeply Intrigued By The Ska-punk Scene. It's Such An Expressive Form Of Popular Music, It's So Real, It's Got So Much Life: It's The Most Vital Music In The World.

If We Could Be Heroes, If Just For One Day.

In My Madness I See Your Face In Mine.

I'm Not A Natural Performer. I Don't Like Performing Very Much.

Rock's Always Been The Devil's Music.

I Went Through All The Musicians In My Life Who I Admire As Bright, Intelligent, Virtuosic Players.

Tomorrow Belongs To Those Who Can Hear It Coming.

The Humanists' Replacement For Religion: Work Really Hard And Somehow You'll Either Save Yourself Or You'll Be Immortal. Of Course, That's A Total Joke, And Our Progress Is Nothing. There May Be Progress In Technology But There's No Ethical Progress Whatsoever.

The World That I Inhabit In Reality Is Probably Very Different World Than The One People Expect That I Would Be In. It Is Quite Sedate. It's Far Removed From A Lot Of What They Would Feel To Be The Limousine Traveling Rock Existence, Or Whatever.

I Kind Of Miss That "becoming" Stage, As Most Times You Really Don't Know What's Around The Corner. Now, Of Course, I've Kind Of Knocked On The Door And Heard A Muffled Answer. Nevertheless, I Still Don't Know What The Voice Is Saying, Or Even What Language It's In.

They're The Salt Of The Earth, Those Girls. They Don't Sit Each Night And Compare Notes On Groups, Criticising Lyrics, Asking If It's Valid. They Just Play The Record... Yeah, And Maybe They Dance. I Love Them. I Love Them Dearly

I Think Getting Married And Then Running Away For 10 Months Would Be An Absolute Disaster.

When I Was Going Through Those Very Fast Changes, I Think It Was Terribly Important To Me That I Was Seen To Be Inventive. I Think That Was The Characteristic Of My Work That I Wanted People To See.

Critics I Don't Understand. They Get Too Intellectual. They're Not Very Well-versed In Street Talk; It Takes Them Longer To Say It. So They Have To Do It In Dictionaries And They Take Longer To Say It.

I Think Hip-hop Is Actually One Of The Most Challenging Things That's Happened In Music In A Long Time.

Comfort Comes Into Your House First As Guest, Then As A Host, Then Finally As The Master.

One Day In Berlin ... Eno Came Running In And Said, 'i Have Heard The Sound Of The Future.' ... He Puts On 'i Feel Love', By Donna Summer ... He Said, 'this Is It, Look No Further. This Single Is Going To Change The Sound Of Club Music For The Next Fifteen Years.' Which Was More Or Less Right.

Style Is About The Choices You Make To Create The Aspects Of Civilization That You Wish To Uphold. I Will Buy A Chair For My House. What Style Of Chair Are You Gonna Buy? Everything We Look At And Choose Is Some Way Of Expressing How We Want To Be Perceived. I Mean, Why Bother Choosing A Chair Because It Looks A Certain Way? Because There's Gonna Be Something About That Chair That Says Something About You.

I Suspect That Dreams Are An Integral Part Of Existence, With Far More Use For Us Than We've Made Of Them...the Fine Line Between The Dream State And Reality Is At Times, For Me, Quite Grey.

I Started Playing Around With Local Rock Band Swith The Alto. And Then, In A Nutshell, Somebody Fell Ill One Night, The Lead Singer Of One Of The Bands, And They Knew I Could Sing, So They Asked Me If I Would Stand In. And I Quite Enjoyed It, Actually, I Must Say, At 14. It Was A Real Trip To Have Girls Wave At You And Smile And Everything Just Because You Opened Your Mouth And Sang.

With "let's Dance," There Was Actually A Chance That I Was Actually Going To Be Able To Keep The Money I Had Made.

We Could Steal Time, Just For One Day We Can Be Heroes, For Ever And Ever What D'you Say?

I Think The Only Music I Didn't Listen To Was Country And Western, And That Holds To This Day.

I Think The First Song I Ever Wrote ... Was Called "can't Help Thinking About Me." That's An Illuminating Little Piece, Isn't It?

Who'll Love Aladdin Sane? Battle Cries And Champagne Just In Time For Sunrise.

Rebel, Rebel, You've Torn Your Dress. Rebel, Rebel, Your Face Is A Mess. Rebel, Rebel, How Could They Know? Hot Tramp, I Love You So.

I'm Still Younger Than Jagger... Most People Are.

Everywhere I Looked, Demons Of The Future [were] On The Battlegrounds Of One’s Emotional Plane.

I Was Studying Tibetan Buddhism When I Was Quite Young, Again Influenced By Kerouac.

A Lot Of People That I Know Are Bugged With The Idea That They Have Got To Have An Audience, Or They Have Got To Be Liked. I Think The More That You Fall Into That Trap It Makes Your Own Life Harder To Come To Terms With, Because An Audience Appreciation Is Only Going To Be Periodic At The Best Of Times.

He Says He's A Beautician And Sells You Nutrition, And Keeps All Your Dead Hair For Making Underwear.

When You Are An Artist You Can Turn Your Hand To Anything, In Any Style. Once You Have The Tools Then All The Artforms Are The Same In The End.

You Would Think That A Rock Star Being Married To A Super-model Would Be One Of The Greatest Things In The World. It Is.

I Don't Know Where I'm Going From Here, But I Promise It Won't Be Boring.

Everything We Look At And Choose Is Some Way Of Expressing How We Want To Be Perceived.

Nothing Prepared Me For Your Smile

The Only Time That I've Adopted Characterization Again Since That Point, For My Own Albums, Has Been An Album Called "outside" That I Did With Brian Eno.

Characterization

My Sexual Nature Is Irrelevant. I'm An Actor, I Play Roles, Fragments Of Myself.

I'm Well Past The Age Where I'm Acceptable. You Get To A Certain Age And You Are Forbidden Access. You're Not Going To Get The Kind Of Coverage That You Would Like In Music Magazines, You're Not Going To Get Played On Radio And You're Not Going To Get Played On Television. I Have To Survive On Word Of Mouth.

By The Mid-'80s, It Was Really Apparent To Me That I Really Needed To Stop Losing Myself In My Work And In My Addictions. What Happens Is You Just Wake Up One Morning And Feel Absolutely Dead. You Can't Even Drag Your Soul Back Into Your Body. You Feel You Have Negated Everything That Is Wonderful About Life. When You Have Fallen That Far, It Feels Like A Miracle When You Regain Your Love Of Life.

Wham, Bam, Thank You Ma'am.

Capitalism Can Be Alright, I Mean Karl Marx Didn't Live To See What Roosevelt Did With That Depression. He Pulled Everybody Out Of That Depression And Everybody Hated Franklin Roosevelt. He Got Into Office Four Times. One After The Other, With Everybody Saying, He Can't Get In Again. Everybody Voted For Roosevelt Four Times And He Did A Hell Of A Lot.

I Don't Like Talk And I Don't Like Talkers. Like Ma Barker. That's What She Always Said, 'ma Barker Doesn't Like Talk And She Doesn't Like Talkers.' She Just Sat There With Her Gun.

It Amazes Me Sometimes That Even Intelligent People Will Analyze A Situation Or Make A Judgement After Only Recognizing The Standard Or Traditional Structure Of A Piece.

I'll Place My Love Beneath The Stars.

All The Great Mystical Religions Put A Strong Emphasis On The Redeeming Qualities Of Sex.

I've Learned To Relax And Be My Present Age And My Present Position. I Feel Comfortable On My Mid-thirties. It Doesn't Seem Such An Alien Place To Be.

Of Course, We Found Out Later Syd Barrett Had Mental Problems. But There Was Something So Otherworldly About Him. He Was Hovering, Like, Six Inches Above The Ground.

For Here, Am I Sitting In A Tin Can, Far Above The World. Planet Earth Is Blue, And There's Nothing I Can Do... Though I'm Past One Hundred Thousand Miles, I'm Feeling Very Still - And I Think My Spaceship Knows Which Way To Go. Tell My Wife I Love Her Very Much.

Sits Like A Man, But Smiles Like A Reptile.

Things Have To Hit For The Moment. That's One Of The Reasons I'm Into Video; The Image Has To Hit Immediately. I Adore Video And The Whole Cutting Up Of It.

It Makes Me Sad When I See Artists Who Come Alive When They Go Onstage, Because, Gee, I Really Come Alive When I'm Home.

I'm Not A Prophet Or A Stone Aged Man, Just A Mortal With Potential Of A Superman. I'm Living On.

There's Just Some Dysfunctionalism With Artists. There Are Good Things And Bad Things About Being An Artist, And The Good Thing Is, Sometimes You Get An Inside Line On What's Really Happening. You Develop These Strange Antennae That Clue You In To What's Really Going On.

I Don't Like People Probing Into My Life, So I Reveal As Little As Possible Or Lie About It As Much As Need Be So As To Give Them Something To Write About.

The End Comes When The Infinites Arrive.

On "tonight" I Think I Was Torn Dreadfully Between Writing What I Wanted To Write, But Keeping It In A Style That Would Follow Up What I Had Just Done. That's Where I Feel I Was Untrue To Myself As An Artist . . . That Album And, To A Lesser Extent, "never Let Me Down."

I Usually Don't Agree With What I Say Very Much. I'm An Awful Liar.

Ironically, Style Doesn't Come Even Closely Related To Fashion. It's Got Nothing To Do [with Clothes].

You Write Down A Paragraph Or Two Describing Several Different Subjects Creating A Kind Of Story Ingredients-list, I Suppose, And Then Cut The Sentences Into Four Or Five-word Sections; Mix Em Up And Reconnect Them. You Can Get Some Pretty Interesting Idea Combinations Like This. You Can Use Them As Is Or, If You Have A Craven Need To Not Lose Control, Bounce Off These Ideas And Write Whole New Sections.

I Rate Morrissey As One Of The Best Lyricists In Britain. For Me, He's Up There With Bryan Ferry.

Some Make You Sing And Some Make You Scream. One Makes You Wish That You'd Never Been Seen. But There's A Shop On The Corner That's Selling Papier Mache, Making Bullet-proof Faces, Charlie Manson, Cassius Clay. If You Want It, Boys, Get It Here, Thing.

Some People Are Marching Together And Some On Their Own. Others Are Running, The Smaller Ones Crawl. But Some Sit In Silence.

Radio In England Is Nonexistent. It's Very Bad English Use Of A Media System, Typically English Use.

I'm Wary Of The Word Glam Because I Think That Became The All-inclusive Term With For Any Bloke With Lipstick On, Which Is Fine, You Know, And That's What It Is When It Comes Down To The Public Level.

I've Always Been Very Chauvinistic, Even In My Boy-obsessed Days. But I Was Always A Gentleman. I Alwaysd Treated My Boys Like Real Ladies. Always Escorted Them Properly And, In Fact, I Suppose If I Were A Lot Older - Like 40 Or 50 - I'd Be A Wonderful Sugar Daddy To Some Little Queen Down In Kensington. I'd Have A Houseboy Named Richard To Order Around.

Funk, I Don't Think I Have Anything To Do With Funk. I've Never Considered Myself Funky.

She Asked For My Love And I Gave Her A Dangerous Mind.

It's True - I Am A Bisexual. But I Can't Deny That I've Used That Fact Very Well. I Suppose It's The Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me.

I Think Music Should Be Tarted Up, Made Into A Prostitute, A Parody Of Itself. It Should Be The Clown, The Pierrot Medium.

The Only Real Failure Is Trying To Second-guess The Taste Of An Audience. Nothing Comes Out Of That Except A Kind Of Inward Humiliation.

I Really Wanted To Do, More Than Anything Else, Up Until I Was Around 16, 17, Was Write Musicals.

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.

I'm Afraid Of Americans; I'm Afraid Of The World; I'm Afraid I Can't Help It.

Sometimes You Stumble Across A Few Chords That Put You In A Reflective Place.

I Think It's Rather A Waste Of Time Endlessly Singing The Same Songs Every Night For A Year, And It's Just Not What I Want To Do.

[while] My Life Started Taking On All The Problems Of Addiction. So That Took Me Off Into An Area Where Relationships Were Absolutely Impossible To Handle On Any Real Level. . . . Even Communicating With Other People Was Impossible.

What I Do Is I Write Mainly About Very Personal And Rather Lonely Feelings, And I Explore Them In A Different Way Each Time. You Know, What I Do Is Not Terribly Intellectual. I'm A Pop Singer For Christ's Sake. As A Person, I'm Fairly Uncomplicated.

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 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'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.

Always Drawn To The Theatric, Bowie Also Performed In Stage Productions Of "the Elephant Man" And Just Recently Collaborated On "lazarus," An Off-broadway Musical That's A Sequel To His 1976 Role In The Film "the Man Who Fell To Earth."

A Song Has To Take On Character, Shape, Body And Influence People To An Extent That They Use It For Their Own Devices. It Must Affect Them Not Just As A Song, But As A Lifestyle. The Rock Stars Have Assimilated All Kinds Of Philosophies, Styles, Histories, Writings, And They Throw Out What They Have Gleaned From That.

1961 Was When I Was Really Into Clothes. I Left School At 15 And Started Copying A Bloke Who Used To Go Up On The Train To London With Me; Leslie, I Think His Name Was. He Was Like, Top Mod Of His Own Area. He Wore Italian Jackets With White Linen Jeans. Boy, Was That Cool! I Mean, That's In Style Now - It's Very Much The L.a. Look. But He Was Wearing It Then, And It Looked Supercool.

People Look To Me To See What The Spirit Of The Seventies Is.

I Guess, People Like Myself And Roxy Music That Had A Different Agenda About Taking Up Music.

It Was Like Treading Water All Through The '60s, And When 1970 Kicked In, I Thought "we're Here. Right." God, This Is Exciting. I'm Going To Go For It Now. I Really Felt It Was My Time. Then Marc Bolan Did It First. That Really Pissed Me Off.

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?

People Who Had Been Treated Inhumanly, Not Given A Chance To Secure Any Foot On Any Ladder - And All The Social Mores Were Suddenly Abandoned.

The Younger People Get Into The Lyrics In A Different Way; There's Much More Of A Tactile Understanding, Which Is The Way I Prefer It.

I Am A D.j., I Am What I Play.

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!

Nature Boy There Was A Boy A Very Strange Enchanted Boy They Say He Wandered Very Far, Very Far Over Land And Sea A Little Shy And Sad Of Eye But Very Wise Was He And Then One Day A Magic Day He Passed My Way And While We Spoke Of Many Things, Fools And Kings This He Said To Me “the Greatest Thing You’ll Ever Learn Is Just To Love And Be Loved In Return

Illusion I Will Be, For I've Never Been A Sinner.

The Media Is Either Our Salvation Or Our Death.

I'd Rather Stay Here With All The Madmen Than Perish With The Sadmen Roaming Free.

Style Is About The Choices You Make To Create The Aspects Of Civilization That You Wish To Uphold.

Tony Visconti And I Had Been Wanting To Work Together Again For A Few Years Now. Both Of Us Had Fairly Large Commitments And For A Long Time We Couldn't See A Space In Which We Could Get Anything Together.

I Had Enormous Self-image, Problems And Very Low Self-esteem, Which I Hid Behind Obsessive Writing And Performing. It's Exactly What I Do Now Except I Enjoy It Now. I'm Not Driven Like I Was In My Twenties. I Was Driven To Get Through Life Very Quickly.

I Didn't Say That Wearing A Glamorization Of The Rock Artist Was Any Truer From The Other Thing.

I'm Not Actually A Very Keen Performer. I Like Putting Shows Together. I Like Putting Events Together.

[david] Bowie Went On To Make Best-selling Music - Funk, Dance Music, Electronic Music, While Also Being Influenced By Cabaret And Jazz.

A Career Of Nearly 40 Years, Is Not Very Long.

I Always Had A Repulsive Sort Of Need To Be Something More Than Human.

The Moment You Know You Know You Know.

I Think Every Time I Said, "i'm Working With Nile [rodgers]," The Reaction Was, "oh, Great. I Love 'let's Dance.' " I Think That's Pretty Expected. I'm Not Sure Nile And I Went In Consciously Not To Make "let's Dance." We Just Wanted To Work Together Again.

Working Together

To Not Be Modest About It, You'll Find That With Only A Couple Of Exceptions, Most Of The Musicians That I've Worked With Have Done Their Best Work By Far With Me.

My Work Is Really The Accumulation Of These Different Moods That I've Had Throughout My Life And Where They've Taken Me. I Start Looking Back, And I Think, I've Actually Created A Life Out Of All This, Out Of These Changes Of Mood. They've Pushed Me Through All These Years, And I Seem To Have A Semblance Of A Life, And If I Look Very Carefully, I Can See Some Thematic Design To It. There's Some Continuity.

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 Had A Fantasy That I'd Drift Up To Scotland And Spend My Life As A Faux Bodhisattua.

When You Think About It, Adolf Hitler Was The First Pop Star.

The Internet Is Merely A New Means Of Communication, That's All It Is. It Serves The Purpose Of Getting Information, Which It Is Fantastic At. I Mean, I Live By The Internet In Terms Of Research And It's Incredible - There's Nothing That You Can't Find Out About. It's Not Stopped Me Going To Bookshops But I Must Say That I Don't Go Into As Many Because Any Book I Want.

The Best Djs In The World Know How To Pull In Music From All Over The Place And Make It Work As A Cohesive Whole.

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.'

People Got Extremely Comfortable With Being Able To Turn On Their Television And See Mtv Say, "this Guy's Hot You Should Buy This Record."

You Can Neither Win Nor Lose If You Don't Run The Race

Let The Children Use It, Let The Children Lose It, Let All The Children Boogie.

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.

It Always Felt Like You Were Trying Too Hard To Look Like The Audience Or Something. That Whole Thing About The Artistic Integrity, Which, Of Course, I've Never Bought Into - With Any Artist. It's Just Not A Real Thing.

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