David Byrne Quotes - Page 7

I've been asking myself: 'Why put together these things - CDs, albums?' The answer I came up with is, well, sometimes it's artistically viable. It's not just a random collection of songs. Sometimes the songs have a common thread, even if it's not obvious or even conscious on the artists' part.

I don't think people are going to switch over to bikes because it's good for them or because it's politically correct. They're going to do it because it gets them from A to B faster.

I'm not suggesting people abandon musical instruments and start playing their cars and apartments, but I do think the reign of music as a commodity made only by professionals might be winding down.

When we started, a lot of bands sounded really different from one another.

As I define it, rock and roll is dead. The attitude isn't dead, but the music is no longer vital. It doesn't have the same meaning. The attitude, though, is still very much alive - and it still informs other kinds of music.

Often I don't know what the song means until it's finished. Sometimes months later. I don't think that's bad. It implies that I don't know what I'm doing but-I think if you're able to follow your instincts, then that's knowing what you're doing.

I came to New York to be a fine artist - that was my ambition.

Real sadness is such an all-encompassing intense thing that it takes you out of your humdrum existence. If you can still function, you want to show it while it's peaking. So when people tell you to cheer up, it's not always the best thing.

There's more good music being made now than ever before.

We don't make music, it makes us

When you fall in love, you feel like a missing piece of a puzzle that's been found.

When it became easy enough to do dairy online, then I just thought, "Oh, I'll start doing this. I'll put the parts online that aren't going to get me in trouble. I'll save the rest for myself." It became also this kind of self-therapy. I could write about stuff that was bothering me, or personal stuff. And the very personal stuff I could edit out. But it was kind of the catharsis of getting it out and writing about it, that made me think, "Okay, I see why people do this, why they keep these diaries." So I thought, "Well, let's see what happens when I post some of it."

I knew I wanted to have a doll of myself on the cover. I thought, I wanna see myself as a Ken doll.

I never listen to the radio unless I rent a car.

Personally, being somewhat envious of Richard's (Thompson) songwriting and guitar playing, it's somewhat satisfying he's not yet achieved household-name status. It serves him right for being so good.

Is giving in to the photographer's presumably natural impulse to compose and light well sometimes okay and not okay other times?

One knew in advance that life in New York would not be easy‚ but there were cheap rents in cold-water lofts without heat‚ and the excitement of being here made up for those hardships. I didn't move to New York to make a fortune.

I didn't have any agenda or plan when I started writing stuff.

The true face of smoking is disease, death and horror - not the glamour and sophistication the pushers in the tobacco industry try to portray.

I'm drawn to the stuff that's maybe a little bit on the fringe. Part of that is just practical sometimes. We can't compete with the major labels for some acts, so you figure, "Okay, what could I introduce to people, or what do I like that is within my means?"

That's the thing about pictures: they seduce you.

A lot of people, musically anyway, have realized that they can do it, and there's an audience for it at least in their own country, and often thought a lot of countries have a diaspora that breaks out all over the place, so they have a pretty wide audience.

In a certain way, you get some new tools to work with, but I don't know if it ultimately makes the creative process any easier.

The voting booth joint is a great leveler; the whole neighborhood - rich, poor, old, young, decrepit and spunky - they all turn out in one day.

I should watch network television, or daytime television, because I'm not sure who all these people are who keep getting referred to in blogs and newspapers. I better get myself culturally attuned.