Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,161,747 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
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“As a dancer he stands alone, and no singer knows his way around a song like Fred Astaire.”
Fred Astaire (1899–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Irving Berlin, quoted in Puttin' on the Ritz, BBC Programme Acquisition, 1999.
“What I hear in my brain (brain radio) dictates the beginning of any attempt at a new song.”
Chris Cornell (1964–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I was on tour with Soundgarden, and I remember writing down the title. The title immediately brought up the idea of the song, which is that someone is so distracted by a new person or a new thing in their life that they kind of forgot that they had given up on life. Sometimes it just happens without us even noticing.”
Chris Cornell (1964–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Day I Tried to Live" has nothing to do with suicide. It's much more meant to be like everyman's story. In spite of how most people present themselves, they probably struggle to feel comfortable or normal around other people, to feel as if they fit in. Everybody wants to and tries to. That's what that song is about. And "Like Suicide" is just a title. It's not about suicide at all.”
Chris Cornell (1964–2017) said by 2017 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Wuthering Heights" was not your normal type song — but that's why it was so brilliant. It was something out the norm. When something like that comes along, they don’t come along that often. When does the next Kate Bush come along, after Kate Bush? There hasn’t been one.”
Elton John (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And you can tell everybody, this is your song. It may be quite simple but now that it's done, I hope you don't mind, I hope you don't mind That I put down in words How wonderful life is while you're in the world.”
Elton John (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But why do they always have to be laughing and making a song-and-dance about everything? I cannot believe homosexuality is that much fun. Heterosexuality certainly is not.”
Zadie Smith (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[singing the song her therapist told her to improvise in order to "let her anxieties out"] If I keep the kitchen floor clean, no one will die!”
Maria Bamford (born 1970) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“On the highest steeps of Space he will have his dwelling-place, In those far, terrific regions where the cold comes down like Death Gleams the red glint of his pinions, smokes the vapor of his breath. Floating downward, very clear, still the echoes reach the ear Of a little tune he whistles and a little song he sings, Mounting, mounting still, triumphant, on his torn and broken wings!”
Stephen Vincent Benét (1898–1943) said by 1943 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Hokey Pokey. Think about it. At the end of the song, what do we learn? What is it all about?... You put your whole self in!”
Martin de Maat (1949–2001) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "Community Mourns the Death of Martin de Maat" by Lisa Lewis (2 March 2001)
“Petal, like a persistent song phrase, like a few stubborn lines of verse memorized in childhood. The needle was stuck.”
Annie Proulx (born 1935) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Britney Spears is recording a rap song about the recent controversies in her life. "I can't wait to hear that!", said no one.”
Amy Poehler (born 1971) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When I was married, my wife suggested I write a song about her. So I wrote 'She's Got Balls' and then she divorced me!”
Bon Scott (1946–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The whole of time would not be long enough to tell you of my joy in being married to you. Joy is not measured just by lovely things: the birth of babies, the song of birds heard together, the fun of holidays — the lyrical-love of lying with you. Joy is to be found, too, in the relief after pain shared, in the good news following bad, in the knowledge of greater closeness after disaster.”
Valerie Hobson (1917–1998) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In her 10th Wedding Anniversary letter to her husband John Profumo, written in 1964, the year after the scandal in which his lying to the House of Commons and adultery was revealed.
“Basically, I write from a two person standpoint. First, I let the song take hold and I put down the idea as a raw emotional statement. Then I let it breathe and come back, approaching from more of an objective point of view. This allows me to rediscover the true meaning I intended in the beginning, shedding new light on how I can best represent that to the listener.”
Bradley Joseph (born 1965) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“So what did they do? They solemnly asked Parliament, not to approve or disapprove, but to 'take note' of our decision. Perhaps some of the older ones among you will remember that popular song: 'She didn't say "Yes", she didn't say "No". She didn't say "stay", she didn't say "go". She wanted to climb, but dreaded to fall, she bided her time and clung to the wall.'”
Harold Macmillan (1894–1986) first seen 1962 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Conservative Party Conference in Blackpool, having some fun at the expense of the opposition Labour Party (13 October 1962), quoted in "Mr Macmillan Denies Threat to Britain's Sovereignty", The Times (15 O…
“[Impersonating Celine) "Zis next song iz for all ze parents in zer audience, and also zer children"...(looks puzzled).... that's just everybody, right?”
Kathy Griffin (born 1960) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You don't write "God Save The Queen" because you hate the English race, you write a song like that because you love them; and you're fed up with them being mistreated.”
John Lydon (born 1956) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For me, how I feel about what I wrote down turns into a song.”
“Once I have lyrics, being able to shape them around a song is nothing new for me, I've been doing that for 25 years. The soul searching part of it, the spontaneous part of it, that was, and remains, a really terrific process.”
“When we speak, in gestures or signs, we fashion a real object in the world; the gesture is seen, the words and the song are heard. The arts are simply a kind of writing, which, in one way or another, fixes words or gestures, and gives body to the invisible.”
Émile Chartier (1868–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I feel so bad. My band started playing the wrong song and I didn't know what to do so I thought I'd do a hoedown. I'm sorry.”
Ashlee Simpson (born 1984) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in: Newsweek. Vol. 145, Nr. 1-13, (2005), p. xxxv
“The muted thunder boomed underwater like a great door opening far away. Suddenly the sea was filled with awesome singing, a song with eternity in it. (p95)”
Witi Ihimaera (born 1944) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You don't appreciate home until you leave it and, let me tell you, you can't appreciate life till you've almost left it! Some people hope and die with their song still in them. I used to think that happiness resulted when my earnings matched my yearnings! But not anymore!”
Patsy Cline (1932–1963) first seen 1961 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: To her mother following the 1961 car accident
“I usually quite like women, but this advert makes me want to kill about 900 of them with my bare hands. It ends with the tiresome ladettes marching down a high street triumphantly singing the Here Come the Girls song out loud, like an invading squadron tormenting the natives with its war cry. Next year they'll probably be armed. Fear this.”
Charlie Brooker (born 1971) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Guardian 16 November 2009.
“Trying to find a peaceful song”
Ryan Adams (born 1974) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am growing increasingly convinced that if every one of these kids burning with passion to write that hit Christian song or make that hit Christian movie or start that hit Christian ministry to change the world would instead focus their passion on walking with God on a daily basis, the world would change.”
Phil Vischer (born 1966) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I really hate it when I think I’m on the precipice of saying something deep and empowering when it’s actually more or less a quote from Rocky IV ("If I can change and you can change, everybody can change") or a lyric from an M People song ("search for the hero inside yourself") but I’ve really got very little to add to these scattered and perennial pop cultural artifacts.”
Russell Brand (born 1975) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My dad wrote a song about the people in the slides. I started playing harmonica. I was only six.”
Rachel Trachtenburg (born 1993) first seen 1959 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Rachel on the song Mountain Trip To Japan, 1959 and how she ended up in the band.
“I'm the most sampled and stolen. What's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine, too … I got a song about that … But I'm never gonna release it. Don't want a war with the rappers. If it wasn't good, they wouldn't steal it.”
James Brown (1933–2006) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Being James Brown," Rolling Stone Magazine, 2006-06-12.
“I like the heat the tenderness the edible the lusciousness the song of a single person the bathtub full of water to bathe myself beneath the water. I like Ucello, Grunewald, Ingres, the drawings and sketches for paintings of Seurat and that man [=Pablo Picasso ]. I measure all things by weight.”
Arshile Gorky (1904–1948) first seen 1942 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In: text for MoMA, describing the 'Garden in Sochi' - series, 26 June 1942
“I like the heat the tenderness the edible the lusciousness the song of a single person the bathtub full of water to bathe myself beneath the water.. ..I like the wheat-fields the plough the apricots those flirts of the sun. But bread above all. (1942)”
Arshile Gorky (1904–1948) said by 1948 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our ways go wide and I know not whither, But my song will search through the worlds for you, Till the Seven Seas waste and the Seven Stars wither, And the dream of the heart comes true.I am out to the roads and the long, long questing, On dark tides driven, on great winds blown: I pass the runs of the world, unresting, I sail to the unknown.”
Edwin Markham (1852–1940) said by 1940 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have a lot of interest in interior rhyming; not just rhyming at the end of the lines, but playing around with rhymes within the lines, playing with where the syllabic emphases in the sentences are, lining those up at strange moments in the line of the song. I’m not sure if that comes across or not.”
Joanna Newsom (born 1982) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: dustedmagazine.com, 19 April 2004
“This is the song for Baby Birch. I will never know you. And at the back of what we've done, there is that knowledge of you.”
Joanna Newsom (born 1982) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the folds and the branches, somewhere, out there, I was only just born into open air. Now hush, little babe. You don’t want to be down in the trenches, remembering with me, where you will not mark my leaving, and you will not hear my parting song. Nor is there cause for grieving. Nor is there cause for carrying on.”
Joanna Newsom (born 1982) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Joy! Again, around—a pause, a sound—a song: a way a lone a last a loved a long. A cave, a grave, a day: arise, ascend. (Areion, Rharian; go free and graze. Amen.) A shore, a tide, unmoored—a sight, abroad: A dawn, unmarked, undone, undarked (a god). No time. No flock. No chime, no clock. No end. White star, white ship—Nightjar, transmit: transcend!”
Joanna Newsom (born 1982) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nearer, my God, to Thee! Nearer to Thee! E’en though it be a cross That raiseth me, Still all my song shall be, Nearer, my God, to Thee! Nearer to Thee!”
Sarah Fuller Flower Adams (1805–1848) said by 1848 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Mary kept the belt of love, and oh, but she was gay! She danced a jig, she sung a song that took my heart away.”
William Allingham (1824–1889) said by 1889 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Lovely Mary Donnelly; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“He made me mess the song up when I looked at him... We can show the kids the tape and say, "Look, that's when we first laid eyes on each other.”
Edie Brickell (born 1966) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Of her performance of "What I Am" on Saturday Night Live, when she noticed Paul Simon standing in front of a cameraman. "Whatever happened to Edie Brickell?" CNN.com (7 January 2004)
“In a world religion class, everyone was complicating life and existence by over-thinking. I had this sense it's right here, right now. It's who we are and what we feel. It's not this tangled web of psychology and philosophy. I was driving to band practice and started singing that song. I wanted to be real, not adopt some philosophy or role. Instinct is our driving force.”
Edie Brickell (born 1966) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On her inspiration for the song "What I Am" in "Edie Brickell, New Bohemians Return to The Fillmore" in San Francisco Bay Times (12 October 2006)
“On a prayer, In a song, I hear your voice, And it keeps me hanging on. Oh, raining down, against the wind, I'm reaching out, 'Till we reach the circle's end. When you come back to me again.”
Garth Brooks (born 1962) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Certainly, I must confess my own barbarousness, I never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas that I found not my heart moved more than with a trumpet.”
Philip Sidney (1554–1586) said by 1586 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But in such a place as this, I can only tell you by singing this song.”
Ayumi Hamasaki (born 1978) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Grieve not for me. … You and I shall smile together, so long as our two forms appear different in the maya-dream of God. Finally we shall merge as one in the Cosmic Beloved; our smiles shall be His smile, our unified song of joy vibrating throughout eternity to be broadcast to God-tuned souls!”
Yukteswar Giri (1855–1936) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Yogananda reports that Yukteswar Giri spoke these words to him in person on 19 June 1936, more than three months after Yukteswar Giri's death.
“I can hear her heart beat from a thousand miles And the heavens open every time she smiles And when I come to her that's where I belong Yet I'm running to her like a river's song.”
Van Morrison (born 1945) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Turn up your radio and let me hear the song Switch on your electric light Then we can get down to what is really wrong I long to hold you tight so I can feel you Sweet lady of the night I shall reveal you.”
Van Morrison (born 1945) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“These are the days of the endless summer These are the days, the time is now There is no past, there's only future There's only here, there's only now. Oh your smiling face, your gracious presence The fires of spring are kindling bright And the radiant heart and the song of glory Crying freedom, freedom in the night”
Van Morrison (born 1945) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The way you see me walking on That's why I'm telling you in song There's only one way to get ahead You've got to give it up instead Start all over again.”
Van Morrison (born 1945) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Meditating were my thoughts On the vain poetry of the bards of Brython. Making the best of themselves in the chief convention. Enough, the care of the smith’s sledge-hammer. I am in want of a stick, straitened in song, The fold of the bards, who knows it not?”
Taliesin (518–599) said by 599 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source