Best 146 quotes of Elvis Costello on MyQuotes

And I'm up while the dawn is breaking, even though my heart is aching. I should be drinking a toast to absent friends instead of these comedians.

And obviously, when I started out, I had a little bit more curiosity than some, and went seeking out the original artists, or in some cases searching up country music.

And over the last ten years, after my work with the Brodsky Quartet, I had the opportunity to write arrangements for chamber group, chamber orchestra, jazz orchestra, symphony orchestra even.

Anything that has to travel all the way down from your cerebellum to your fingertips, there's a lot of things that can happen on the journey. Sometimes I'll listen to records, my own stuff, and I think god, the original idea for this was so much better than the mutation that we arrived at.

As I walk through This wicked world Searchin' for light in the darkness of insanity, I ask myself Is all hope lost? Is there only pain and hatred, and misery? And each time I feel like this inside, There's one thing I wanna know: What's so funny 'bout Peace, Love, & Understanding?

But there are things in Il Sogno that the methods of The Delivery Man could never achieve.

Certain songs have been written years apart, but they have a natural continuity to my mind.

[Commercial] radio is absolutely the enemy of music. They are my sworn and mortal enemy, and I will have nothing to do with them.

[Commercial radio] is owned by one or two corporations now, and they're not in the music business. They're in the advertising business.... So let's not kid ourselves. If you want to hear music, go buy a guitar.

'Content' is a word that has never sat well with me. Like 'maturity'. They are two words I've never liked. I think they imply some sort of decay. A settling.

Days of Dutch courage, just three French letters, and a German sense of humour.

Don't start me talking, I could talk all night. My mind goes sleepwalking while I'm putting the world right.

Don't tell me you don't know what love is When you're old enough to know better.

Don't try to touch my heart, it's darker than you think. And don't try to read my mind, because it's full of disappearing ink.

Don't wear your heart on your sleeve when your remarks are off the cuff.

Even in a perfect world where everyone was equal. I'd still own the film rights and be working on the sequel.

For all the courage that we never had, I'm just about glad.

Funny, now I can see, how looks can be deceiving.

Good manners and bad breath will get you nowhere.

History repeats the old conceits, the glib replies, the same defeats.

I became an altar boy because of the solemn face, but I got thrown out at fourteen for laughing. Because the priest used to mumble everything except the church plate takings.

I believe that music is connected by human passions and curiosities rather than by marketing strategies.

I can't say anymore than I love you. Anything else would be a waste of breath.

I can write orchestrations, but I can't sight-read music and play at the same time. I don't have enough facility.

I could promise that I'll always be true to you, but we may not live to be so old.

I'd been to Memphis before, but we stayed out of Memphis early on in the late 70s for obvious reasons. People were very sensitive about Elvis Presley, and my stage name obviously would be provocative to some people in that area at that time.

I'd be very suspicious of anybody that seems to have to move to the next level of expression. I distrust that: now I'm writing a book, now I'm being an actor. It should be a natural thing. I think it's a natural thing for you to act. But I think that people that feel that, because they've written one maybe quite beautiful love song that equips them to play Romeo, is probably misguided.

I don't think I was ever particularly mean. I can certainly think of some idiotic exchanges I've had. I was accused of destroying pop music, like Wagner destroyed opera - a guy in Germany started ranting that at me.

I feel like a juggler running out of hands.

If I am frightened then I can hide it If I am crying, I'll call it laughter If I am haunted, I'll call it my imaginary friend If I am bleeding I'll call it wine But if you leave me then I am broken And if I'm broken then only death remains

I find it to be the ultimate backhanded compliment when you are compared against yourself.

I get very frustrated by this term 'genre exercise.' I mean, what exactly is that? Genre is not really relevant when you are writing a song; hopefully you are doing it to explore something, to create something, and I don't agree that any of my albums are genre exercises.

I just got into it like a lot of people through the rock 'n' roll bands in the late '60s that turned to country music, like The Byrds and Buffalo Springfield, but particularly through The Byrds because of Gram Parsons, Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman (with their 1968 album Sweetheart of the Rodeo). They kind of introduced English kids to Merle Haggard and George Jones and the Louvins (brothers Charlie and Ira).

I know that when I make a record like The Delivery Man as a contrast to even Il Sogno, this is going to reach a wider audience, because it communicates in that very direct way.

I love you more than anything in this world. I don't expect that will last.

Imagination is a powerful deceiver.

I'm a man with a mission in two or three editions And I'm giving you a longing look Everyday, everyday, everyday I write the book.

I'm a working travelling musician, but just on a bigger scale...

I'm drawing from two generations back how to think about music, how to think about why you travel to make music, what the possible pitfalls of that are for the way your life is structured. The good and bad of all of it get into the mix of what's created, what you're creating.

I'm goin' to take a little trip, down paradise's endless shores. They say that travel broadens the mind, till you can't get your head out of doors.

I mistrust these people in music industry who can be everybody. This is where technology dictates to them. I mistrust that, that in somehow the chips capture the soul of a player, that's patent nonsense.

I'm just the mere shadow of my former selfishness. I crave the silhouette of your kiss.

I'm not going to get too sentimental, like those other sticker valentines, 'cause I don't know if you are loving some body. I only know it isn't mine.

In the tiny torn up pieces of his mind he's irresistible too.

I really thought twice about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when that came in. I always was of a mind that it's an inherently stupid idea to put something like that in a glass case.

I started with rock n' roll and...then you start to take it apart like a child with a toy and you see there's blues and there's country...Then you go back from country into American music...and you end up in Scotland and Ireland eventually.

It's a dangerous game that comedy plays. Sometimes it tells you the truth; sometimes it delays it.

It's a petty thing, but I wouldn't join the Scouts when I was a kid, 'cause you had to swear allegiance to the queen. I'm just not a royalist. I think it's idiotic, a hereditary principle.

It's not crazy to want to have certain songs be developed harmonically and still want to make noise with the guitar. And you can have both.

It's the damage that we do and never know. It's the words that we don't say that scare me so.