Elvis Costello famous quotes

I used to be disgusted; now I try to be amused.
-- Elvis Costello

#Inspirational #Life #Bullying

People speak with enormous pomposity and arrogance about music.
-- Elvis Costello

#People #Arrogance #Speak

What's so funny about peace, love and understanding
-- Elvis Costello

#Peace #Understanding #Tolerance

You must hold on to the sort of finger-painting aspect of music. That's something I learned, particularly from listening to Neil Young. Tom Waits is another one, because Tom's music is incredibly sophisticated and beautifully arranged, but he's using a toolbox that's unlike anybody else's.
-- Elvis Costello

#Waiting #Listening #Painting

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.
-- Elvis Costello

#Form #Music Is #Feels

The theme of exile is attractive to me, because it's sort of like the family business. Not just music, but travel.
-- Elvis Costello

#Attractive #Theme #Exile

Morrissey writes wonderful song titles, but sadly he often forgets to write the song.
-- Elvis Costello

#Song #Writing #Titles

I've never had any real concern about posterity. I hope some people will be sorry when I'm not here, but I'm not playing for that.
-- Elvis Costello

#Sorry #Real #People

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

#Hands #Fool #Radio

My dad's father was a White Star Line trumpet player in the '20s. It shaped the way that I think about music. My grandfather was classically trained, military trained. He was an orphan who ended up in the Military School of Music in Kneller Hall.
-- Elvis Costello

#Stars #Dad #Father

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

#Believe #Passion #Curiosity

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.
-- Elvis Costello

#Stupid #Glasses #Rocks

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture - it's really a stupid thing to want to do.
-- Elvis Costello

#Music #Stupid #Writing

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

#Song #Years #Mind

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.
-- Elvis Costello

#Drinking #Heart #Comedian

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.
-- Elvis Costello

#Thinking #Two #Drawing

My ultimate vocation in life is to be an irritant.
-- Elvis Costello

#Music #Reality #Life Is

There are a lot of things that you can like at a distance without spending a huge amount of time pondering. It's not so complicated.
-- Elvis Costello

#Distance #Complicated #Spending

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

#Sound #Odd #Harmony

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.
-- Elvis Costello

#Song #Crazy #Guitar

[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.
-- Elvis Costello

#Kids #Two #Guitar

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

#Writing #Sight #Play

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

#Men #Achieve #Method

Happiness isn't a fortune in a cookie. It's deeper, wider, funnier, and more transporting than that.
-- Elvis Costello

#Cookies #Fortune #Deeper

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

#Marriage #Love You #Would Be

Women hear rhythm differently than men.
-- Elvis Costello

#Men #Gender #Rhythm

My grandfather and my father disagreed about music, not least of all because my dad wanted to improvise. It wasn't just that he wanted to play different music; it was just that he came off the dots.
-- Elvis Costello

#Dad #Father #Play

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.
-- Elvis Costello

#Country #Children #Rocks

People become so deeply attached to the sound of one period that they blow a fuse when you move on. I've heard people complain bitterly about recordings they haven't even heard.
-- Elvis Costello

#Moving #Blow #People

I've been lucky to listen to lots of different types of music.
-- Elvis Costello

#Different #Lucky #Type

The cost of living in sin would make a poor man out of Paul Getty.
-- Elvis Costello

#Men #Cost #Politics

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

#Promise #May #Being True

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.
-- Elvis Costello

#Heart #Thinking #Advice

There are a few things that I regret, but nothing that I need to forget.
-- Elvis Costello

#Regret #Philosophy #Needs

When they finally put you in the ground, I'll stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down.
-- Elvis Costello

#Revenge #Dirt #Retribution

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.
-- Elvis Costello

#Hurt #Philosophy #Dark

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

#Philosophy #Glad

If it wasn't for some acci-accidents, then some would never learn.
-- Elvis Costello

#Education #Accidents

My ultimate vocation in life is to be an irritant, someone who disrupts the daily drag of life just enough to leave the victim thinking there's maybe more to it all than the mere hum-drum quality of existence.
-- Elvis Costello

#Thinking #Quality #Life Is

I knew I was in trouble, but I thought I was in hell.
-- Elvis Costello

#Evil #Hell #Trouble

I feel like a juggler running out of hands.
-- Elvis Costello

#Running #Hands #Explanation

Cause somewhere in the Quizling Clinic, there's a shorthand typist taking seconds over minutes.
-- Elvis Costello

#Causes #Minutes #Clinic

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

#Kissing #Shadow #Selfishness

What do we care, if the world is a joke? We'll give it a big kiss, we'll give it a poke. Death wears a big hat cause he's a big bloke.
-- Elvis Costello

#Death #Kissing #Giving

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

#Mind #Pieces #Tiny

Elvis Presley and Puccini shall return.
-- Elvis Costello

#Return

You're drinking vintage Elvis Presley wine.
-- Elvis Costello

#Drinking #Wine #Vintage

I wish you luck with a capital F.
-- Elvis Costello

#Luck #Wish

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

#Peace #Night #Talking

Sometimes I almost feel just like a human being.
-- Elvis Costello

#Low Self Esteem #Sometimes #Feels

Imagination is a powerful deceiver.
-- Elvis Costello

#Art #Powerful #Media

She said she was working for the ABC news, it was as much of the alphabet as she knew how to use.
-- Elvis Costello

#Art #Media #News

Those days she was just a beautiful girl, now she's framed and hung up.
-- Elvis Costello

#Beautiful #Girl #Art

The long arm of the law slides up the outskirts of town.
-- Elvis Costello

#Order #Law #Long

She pulls the eyes out with a face like a magnet.
-- Elvis Costello

#Eye #Faces #Compliment

People think it is all about country music, and I know a lot of country music has come out of there, but like Blonde on Blonde by Bob Dillon was recorded there. A lot of great records; R&B records, jazz records. It's a lot of great players and great studios.
-- Elvis Costello

#Country #Player #Thinking

They say you better listen to the voice of reason But they don't give you any choice 'cause they think that it's treason. So you had better do as you are told. You better listen to the radio.
-- Elvis Costello

#Thinking #Voice #Giving

I wanna bite the hand that feeds me. I wanna bite that hand so badly. I want to make them wish they'd never seen me.
-- Elvis Costello

#Hands #Wish #Want

Theres so many fish in the sea That only rise up in the sweat and smoke like mercury
-- Elvis Costello

#Sea #Sweat #Mercury

Clowntime is over Time to take cover While others just talk and talk Somebody's watching where the others don't walk.
-- Elvis Costello

#Walks

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

#Love Is #Enough

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.
-- Elvis Costello

#Book #Writing #Men

Nonsense prevails, modesty fails Grace and virtue turn into stupidity While the calendar fades almost all barricades to a pale compromise And our leaders have feasts on the backsides of beasts They still think they're the gods of antiquity If something you missed didn't even exist It was just an ideal is it such a surprise?
-- Elvis Costello

#Thinking #Stupidity #Leader

Well there's a line that you must toe and it'll soon be time to go but it's darker than you know in those Complicated Shadows
-- Elvis Costello

#Shadow #Lines #Toes

Why can't a man stand alone? Must he be burdened by all that he's taught to consider his own? His skin and his station, his kin and his crown, his flag and his nation They just weigh him down
-- Elvis Costello

#Men #Skins #Flags

Now I just don't know who to tell to go to hell Who put the old devil in the distorted angel?
-- Elvis Costello

#Angel #Devil #Hell

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

#Heart #Cuffs #Sleeves

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

#I Love You More #World #Lasts

Turn up the TV. No one listening will suspect, even your mother won't detect it, no your father won't know. they think that I've got no respect but everything means less than zero.
-- Elvis Costello

#Mother #Zero #Father

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.
-- Elvis Costello

#Angel #Wings #Shoes

You can't live in the past, and I don't. I'm not nostalgic about my own work at all.
-- Elvis Costello

#Past #Nostalgic

You have to face the fact that I have no reputation as a composer; I have my reputation as a songwriter and a performer-and that opportunity came this summer, when I was invited to perform at the Lincoln Centre festival in New York... three nights.
-- Elvis Costello

#Summer #New York #Opportunity

There is something wrong with you if you don't get angry about something.
-- Elvis Costello

#Emotion #Angry

She's filing her nails while they are dragging the lake.
-- Elvis Costello

#Lakes #Evil #Nails

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?
-- Elvis Costello

#Pain #Light #Hatred

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

#Expression #Three #Letters

Sleeping with forgiveness in your heart for me.
-- Elvis Costello

#Heart #Sleep #Expression

The wages of sin are an expensive infection.
-- Elvis Costello

#Expression #Wages #Sin

History repeats the old conceits, the glib replies, the same defeats.
-- Elvis Costello

#Future #Defeat #Conceit

There's no money back guarantee on future happiness.
-- Elvis Costello

#Future #Guarantees #Premonition

Then 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.
-- Elvis Costello

#Boys #Laughing #Church

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.
-- Elvis Costello

#Country #Government #Order

There was not a lot of rock n roll in the house. Our parents didnt think it was very groovy, and I tend to agree with them. If you grew up with Charlie Parker, Bill Haley wasnt very hip.
-- Elvis Costello

#Thinking #Rocks #Parent