Elvis Costello Quotes

I used to be disgusted; now I try to be amused.

My ultimate vocation in life is to be an irritant.

There are five things to write songs about: I'm leaving you. You're leaving me. I want you. You don't want me. I believe in something. Five subjects, and 12 notes. For all that, we musicians do pretty well.

I wish you luck with a capital F.

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

When in doubt, play track 4 - it is usually the one you want.

Songs are more powerful than books.

You can be addicted to misery the same way as you can be addicted to drugs.

Was it a millionaire who said, "Imagine no possessions"?

Music is more like water than a rhinoceros. It doesn't charge madly down one path. It runs away in every direction.

The truth can't hurt you, it's just like the dark. It scares you witless, but in time you see things clear and stark.

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

Somebody should clip Sting around the head and tell him to stop using that ridiculous Jamaican accent.

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

The people with the most resources are the federal government. If you can invade a country halfway across the world in a matter of days, you can surely come to the aid of your own citizens in a shorter order of time.

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

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?

Women hear rhythm differently than men.

I'm not even sure what I want, but that's not the point - it's that I want it now.

Oh I used to be disgusted and now I try to be amused. But since their wings have got rusted, you know, the angels wanna wear my red shoes.

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.

And I don't feel any form of music is beyond me in the sense of that I don't understand it or I don't have some love for some part of it.

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

The radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools tryin' to anesthetize the way that you feel.

Maybe I just never learned my harmony part, because what everybody says sounds odd to them sounds perfectly natural to me.