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One Day I Realized 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. That's When You Can Begin Really Looking For A Relationship. When You Can Appreciate The Whole Concept Of Giving To Someone, Not Just Taking.

-David Bowie

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One Day I Realized

David Bowie

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One Day I Realized 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. That's When You Can Begin Really Looking For A Relationship. When You Can Appreciate The Whole Concept Of Giving To Someone, Not Just Taking.

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

I Had Very Deep Concerns About My Financial Status Because I Found That Up Until "let's Dance" I Was Virtually Broke Again. I Had Been So Irresponsible In How I Dealt With My Financial Affairs. I Take Full Responsibility For That.

The End Comes When The Infinites Arrive.

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

There Were Lots Of Nightly Relationships. But The Reason You Don't Want To Make A Commitment Is Not That You're Such A Freewheeling, Adventurous Person, It's Because You're Scared Shitless That It Will Turn Out Like Your Mother And Father.

We Slit The Catholic Throat, Stoned The Poor On Such Slogans As Wish You Could Hear And Love Is All We Need.

I Spent So Much Time In My Bedroom. It Really Was My Entire World. I Had Books Up There, My Music Up There, My Record Player. Going From My World Upstairs Out Onto The Street, I Had To Pass Through This No-man's-land Of The Living Room, You Know, And Out The Front Hall.

Turn And Face The Strange.

Love Is Every Type Of Relationship That You Think Of... I'm Sure It Means Relationship, Every Type Of Relationship That You Can Think Of.

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

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

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

If I Put Faith In Medication, If I Can Smile A Crooked Smile, If I Can Talk On Television, If I Can Walk An Empty Mile.

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.

I'm Rather Kind Of Old School, Thinking That When An Artist Does His Work It's No Longer His.

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

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

I Really Believe That Bob Dylan And Others Have Speeded Up The Changes. Pacifism Has Found A Voice At Last.

I Guess Ziggy Would Have Been The Perfect Vehicle To Have Done With.

It Was Fun To Be Clever.

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

I've Been Putting Out The Fire With Gasoline.

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

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.

Is It Nice In Your Snowstorm- Freezing Your Brain? Do You Think That Your Face Looks The Same?

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."

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.

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.

They [people] Mistake Fashion For Style.

I Can Ask For Cigarettes In Every Language

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.

Once I've Written Something It Does Tend To Run Away From Me. I Don't Seem To Have Any Part Of It - It's No Longer My Piece Of Writing.

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.

When The Musical Keyboard Was Created In The 1970's, You Had Electronic Geeks That Had No Background In Music Created These Devises And Gave Them To Musicians That Had No Background In Electronics. The Result Was Some Of The Wierd Sounds That Came Out In The '70s.

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.

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

I Have To Take Total Control Myself. I Can't Let Anybody Else Do Anything, For I Find That I Can Do Things Better For Me. I Don't Want To Get Other People Playing With What They Think That I'm Trying To Do.

It's Not The Side-effects Of The Cocaine - I'm Thinking That It Must Be Love. It's Too Late To Be Grateful, It's Too Late To Be Hateful, It's Too Late To Be Late Again, The European Cannon Is Here.

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.

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.

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.

Once You Lose That Sense Of Wonder At Being Alive, You're Pretty Much On The Way Out.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Hey Man, I Gotta Straighten My Face. This Mellow Thighed Chick Just Put My Spine Out Of Place.

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

There Was A Time In America Not Long Ago When Rock 'n' Roll Was Called Race Music, And White Kids Who Wanted To Go See Chuck Berry Were Completely Forbidden.

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

I Heard The News Today, Oh Boy.

I Don't Expect The Human Race To Progress In Too Many Areas. However, Having A Child With An Ear Infection Makes One Hugely Grateful For Antibiotics.

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

Feeling So Gay, Feeling So Gay.

Rather Than Really Have, Like A Close Relationship To Anything That's Coming Out Today, People Are Just, They've Got It On As Background Music. It's Kind Of The Same Way The Cabdrivers Use Music; It's Very Disposable.

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.

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

I Have Absolutely No Interest In Rock And Roll. I'm Just Being David Bowie. Mick Jagger Is Rock And Roll. I Mean, I Go Out And My Music Is Roughly The Format Of Rock And Roll, I Use The Chord Changes Of Rock And Roll, But I Don't Feel I'm A Rock And Roll Artist. I'd Be A Terrible Rock Artist, Absolutely Ghastly.

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.

Making Love With His Ego.

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.

I Don't Think I Did Anything That My Contemporaries Didn't; It Was Just That I Was The Only One Who Talked About It. In The Sixties Anyone Who Had A Sense Of Style Seemed To Be Gay. I Wanted To Indentify With That.

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

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.

When We Decided To Marry, We Had Two Ceremonies - One Was More Bureaucratic For The Sake Of The Swiss Authorities,then A Church Service In Florence, And I Wrote The Music For The Church Service. The Challenge In That Was That Iman's [abdulmajid] Family Are Muslim And Mine Are Protestant. I Had To Be Careful About The Prayers That We Chose And The Music I Wrote Because I Didn't Want To Offend Either Side.

I Once Asked [john] Lennon What He Thought Of What I Do. He Said 'it's Great, But Its Just Rock And Roll With Lipstick On'.

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."

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

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

In Fact, In Europe, I'm More Kind Of This Bloke What Writes Lots Of Stuff.

Make The Best Of Every Moment. We're Not Evolving. We're Not Going Anywhere.

Every Time I've Made A Radical Change It's Helped Me Feel Buoyant As An Artist

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

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

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

The Coming Together Of People I Find Obscene As A Principle. It Is Not Human. It Is Not A Natural Thing As Some People Would Have Us Believe.

I'll Ruin Everything You Are, I'll Give You Television.

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.

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.

I Don't Like To Read Things That People Write About Me. I'd Rather Read What Kids Have To Say About Me, Because It's Not Their Profession To Do That.

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

If You Feel Safe In The Area You’re Working In, You’re Not Working In The Right Area. Always Go A Little Further Into The Water Than You Feel You’re Capable Of Being In. Go A Little Bit Out Of Your Depth. And When You Don’t Feel That Your Feet Are Quite Touching The Bottom, You’re Just About In The Right Place To Do Something Exciting.

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 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.

It Took Me A Long Time To Reach The Bottom And It Went Through Various Stages. I Went From Drugs Into An Alcohol Stage. For A While, One Feels, "ah, I've Kicked Drugs," But What I Discovered Was I Had Another Addiction Instead.

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

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.

If It Works, It's Out Of Date.

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

If I Hadn't Had My Children, I Would Have Been Discouraged A Lot Quicker. It Would Have Been Much More Easy For Me To Say, "you Know What, Let The Whole Thing Go. Have A Good Time, Because These People, This Place - It's Just Not Worth It." You Know? I Can't Do That Anymore. I Look Into Those Eyes And They Look At Me So Trustingly That I'm Gonna Make Sure That [they're Thinking], "hey, You Did A Good Thing Bringing Me Into The World, Daddy. I'm Going To Have A Great Life!"

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

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

There Seem To Be A Lot Of Black Artists Making Very Good Videos That I'm Surprised Aren't Being Used On Mtv.

I Don't Believe In Proper Cinema; It Doesn't Have The Strength Of Television. People Having To Go Out To The Cinema Is Really Archaic. I'd Much Rather Sit At Home.

Sweet Head, Give You Sweet Head.

She's A Total Bam Bam.

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

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!

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.

The Media Is Either Our Salvation Or Our Death.

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.

I Think Fame Itself Is Not A Rewarding Thing. The Most You Can Say Is That It Gets You A Seat In Restaurants.

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.

I Probably Also Wanted To Be Black At That Particular Time [ 9 Years Old] As Well.

The Truth Is Of Course Is That There Is No Journey. We Are Arriving And Departing All At The Same Time.

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

No More Free Steps To Heaven.

In Order To Look Special Wearing The Chancy Unique; It Must Be Worn With Your Persona, And If The Two Don't Blend, Then The Look Becomes Pear-shaped.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In My Madness I See Your Face In Mine.

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

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."

One Day I Realized 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. That's When You Can Begin Really Looking For A Relationship. When You Can Appreciate The Whole Concept Of Giving To Someone, Not Just Taking.

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.

I Could Never Have Done What I Did Without Being Involved With Lindsay Kemp's Company.

Wham, Bam, Thank You Ma'am.

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.

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

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

Nothing Prepared Me For Your Smile

I Really Floated Around In The '60s, Because I Felt Comfortable With Nothing.

I've Come To The Realisation That I Have Absolutely No Idea What I'm Doing Half The Time...

Sexuality And Where It Is Going Is An Extraordinary Question, For I Don't See It Going Anywhere. It Is With Me, And That's It.

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

To Be Taken Seriously About Doing Something Creative And Probably Travel A Lot. That Was My Motivation. I Knew I Was Good, I Knew I Could Write. I Also Knew You Could Get Laid Really Easily.

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!

I Want People To Hear Musicians Like Joe Cuba. He Has Done Things To Whole Masses Of Puerto Rican People. The Music Is Fantastic And Important.

Tomorrow Belongs To Those Who Can Hear It Coming.

Someday, I'm Gonna Write A Poem In A Letter; Someday, I'm Gonna Get That Faculty Together.

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.

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.

At No Point Did I Ever Doubt I Would Be As Near As Anybody Could Be To England's Elvis Presley. Even From Eight Or Nine Years Old, I Thought, Well, I'll Be The Greatest Rock Star In England. I Just Made Up My Mind.

Fame Can Take Interesting Men And Thrust Mediocrity Upon Them.

I'm Drawn Between The Light And Dark.

I Always Write Well In New York.

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.

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 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.

If I Never Wake Again, I Certainly Will Have Lived While I Was Alive.

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

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

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

I Don't Live For The Stage. I Don't Live For An Audience.

There's A Terror In Knowing What The World Is About

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

Look Up Here, I'm In Heaven.

Church On Time, Makes Me Party.

The Minute You Know You're On Safe Ground, You're Dead.

When I Was 9 Years Old, I Wanted To Be The Baritone Sax Player In The Little Richard Band.

I Surrounded Myself With People Who Indulged My Ego. They Treated Me As Though I Was Ziggy Stardust Or One Of My Characters, Never Realising That David Jones Might Be Behind It.

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

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.

The Moment You Know You Know You Know.

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.

Nearly All The Synth Work On Heathen Is Mine And Some Of The Piano.

I Am A Moderately Good Singer. I Am Not A Great Singer But I Can Interpret A Song, Which I Don't Think Is Quite The Same As Singing It.

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

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

Syd Barrett Of Pink Floyd Was The First Person In Rock I Had Seen With Makeup On. He Wore Black Nail Polish And Lots Of Mascara And Black Eye Shadow, And He Was So Mysterious. It Was This Androgynous Thing I Found Absolutely Fascinating.

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

Elvis Is English, And Climbs The Hills. Can't Tell The Bullshit From The Lies.

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.

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.

Hitler Was The First Superstar.

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.

For Here Am I Sitting In A Tin Can, Far Above The World. Planet Earth Is Blue, And There's Nothing I Can Do.

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

Pixies And Sonic Youth Were So Important To The Eighties.

I'm Not Sure Whether It Is Me Changing My Mind, Or Whether I Lie A Lot.

I'm English. I Can't Accept Happiness That Easily. There's Got To Be A Trick In There Somewhere.

I Couldn't Stand To Be Separated With My Wife For Months. It Became Quickly Apparent To Me That I Needed To Find A Balance Between My Absolute Work Obsession And A Private Life That We Could Share Without My Disappearing All The Time.

Am I Machiavellian? I Don't Think I'm Quite The Mastermind People Would Have Me Be. Everything I Do Tends To Be Very Successful And It May Have Something To Do With The Fact That I'm Very Good, Not Necessarily That I Manipulate. But That Doesn't Often Occur To People.

Touring With Iggy Pop Was Something To Do. It Was Good Fun. I Got Drunk A Lot.

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.

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

I Think That The History Of Rock Could Be Recycled In A Different Way And Brought Back Into Focus Without The Luggage That Comes Along With It.

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

Never Bored, So I'll Never Get Old

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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 Never Really Got The Book Together For The Thing, So I Had All The Songs And The Characters. But By The Time We'd Gotten It On The Road And I'd Been Doing It For 18 Months, Oh God, I Couldn't Wait To Move On To Something Else.

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

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.

Religion Is For People Who Fear Hell, Spirituality Is For People Who Have Been There.

Time Takes A Cigarette, Puts It In Your Mouth.

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.

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