Jarvis Cocker famous quotes

You don't often hear people say, 'Oh, since he's been taking them drugs, he's such a nice person! He's really come out of his shell, he's really nice, he's blossomed'.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Nice #People #Drug

I travel backwards and forwards quite a lot. I live very near to the train station. I'm kind of playing at being an expatriate, I suppose.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Kind #Expatriates #Train Stations

I'm not a religious person but I do like the idea of Sunday as a day set apart from the rest of the week. It's nice to have a period of reflection and have time to think about things.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Religious #Nice #Sunday

There seems to be a contradiction in the fact that there's more music around and more channels or downloading music or more channels on TV, and yet at the same time, in some ways it doesn't seem to be as vital as it once was. It seems to be just another entertainment option or lifestyle enhancement aid or something.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Way #Enhancement #Facts

The things in my songs are the edited highlights of my life. I don't go seeking out strange sexual experiences every day of the week.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Song #Strange #Week

Culture shouldn't be a pacifying thing. It shouldn't be something that you just passively accept. I think it should be something that, in some ways, is quite disruptive - makes you think and question things, and actually sparks debate.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Thinking #Make You Think #Culture

Its OK to grow up, just as long as you don't grow old. Face it you are young.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Growing Up #Long #Faces

I do want to have that feeling that people are actively involved in something, rather than just consuming something. I suppose that's what it comes down to, because it's such a dominant capitalist society, everything becomes a consumer product. And I don't think that's really appropriate to the creative arts, really.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Art #Thinking #People

As a shy kid growing up in Sheffield, I fantasized about how it would be great to be famous so I wouldn't actually have to talk to people and feel awkward. And of course, as we all know from fairy stories, when you achieve that ambition, you find out you don't want it.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Growing Up #Ambition #Kids

We live in an age where people are kind of a bit obsessed with celebrity and stuff. You can't help but be curious about it.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#People #Age #Stuff

I'm always amazed by people who blog all the time and tweet all the time, and still get things done. I don't know how they do it.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#People #Done #Tweet

There are some quite funny things about getting famous and stuff, but I think there comes a point where you have to think to yourself, "Well, am I doing this because I want to go to a party and meet Britney Spears? Or am I doing it because I want to create something that excites me?"
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Party #Thinking #Funny Things

I think basically becoming famous has taken the place of going to Heaven in modern society, hasn't it? That's the place where your dreams will come true. It's an act of faith now; they think that's going to sort things out.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Dream #Taken #Thinking

I think life is more interesting when everybody's jumbled up together. When people separate out into cliques and things, it's okay, but it's a bit limiting. You can always learn things from other people. This is my theory.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Thinking #People #Interesting

We've always been a bit out of touch with reality.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Reality

I'm a sluggish character; I'm a bit slow. For some reason I find it hard to work quickly.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Character #Reason

The good thing about people really is their iffy-ness and dodginess, isnt it?
-- Jarvis Cocker

#People #Good Things

The thing with Disney songs is they're very manipulative, very sentimental, but they do get you, you know - there's a kind of sadness to them and that kind of music doesn't really exist any more.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Song #Sadness #Sentimental

Part of why I started a band was due to feelings of shyness and social ineptitude. I saw it as some way of being able to interact with people from a safe distance.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Distance #People #Feelings

Being chronically shy I needed to create a persona for myself and be involved with a band where I could be ruler of my own kingdom. Then Pulp became hugely popular and I lost control of it, which is when it all went wrong.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Shy #Band #Kingdoms

Unless you're living on the street and surviving on a diet of discarded turkey drumsticks, there's no point in being gloomy. We've spent too long trying to cheer ourselves up by spending money on brightly coloured things we don't really need. We've stopped using our imaginations.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Cheer #Turkeys #Long

I recently spent quite a bit of time in Sheffield, England, which is where I'm from. I wouldn't move back there, but it's funny when you spend a bit of time in the place where you were brought up. You kind of realize how that place has had quite a big effect on you or made you a certain way.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Funny #Moving #Way

The main thing I don't like about myself is an absurd level of self-consciousness that makes any sort of social encounter an ordeal for me.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Self #Encounters #Levels

Pulp existed for 12 years before we got famous. Now, you could say that was just lack of imagination, but it's some kind of quality isn't it? Tenacity. You could also say it was sloth.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Years #Imagination #Sloth

I'd been thinking I'd have to learn how to play really well, but obviously the message of punk was that you just learn three chords in a week and you're away.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Thinking #Play #Three

I used to look at older people who bothered to still attend nightclubs and couldn't help but wonder why. Didn't they realize how foolish they looked? Of course, now that I'm one of those people myself, I have decided that such rules don't apply to me.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#People #Looks #Helping

Tabloids invoke freedom of speech, but they're not interested in that, they're just interested in who's shagging whom, who's got drunk. And if you take that pretend, faux moral standpoint, you end up with people in public life being completely boring. Like they've had their genitals removed.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#People #Drunk #Freedom Of Speech

Everybody's a bit screwed up, you know. You can take it as symptoms of a disorder, or you can take it as personality. Me, I'd rather think it as parts of personality.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Thinking #Personality #Disorder

There isn't much I find interesting to write about in middle-class life.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Writing #Class #Interesting

It’s interesting that most gadgets are called ‘iPhone’ and ‘iPod,’ with that ‘i’ prefix, which is ego. But most creativity is not ego-led – a lot of it comes from the unconscious. So if you’re always checking your email or updating your Instagram profile, you’re not just looking out the window, daydreaming. You’ve got to let the subconscious in – that’s my main message to the world.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Creativity #Iphone #Ipods

I love the Beatles. I haven't named any kids after them but I still really love them. They were the first group that I was ever properly aware of. In my early teens I would sometimes stay in and listen to the radio all day in the hope that I would catch a song by them that I'd never heard before and be able to tape it on my radio-cassette player.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Song #Kids #Player

I know that some filmmakers strive for a kind of naturalistic approach, but you're never going to capture something that's really natural - just the simple fact that you choose to put a frame around something means that you've already chosen one particular thing to put more attention on.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Mean #Simple #Attention

Hawkwind are one of those bands that people introduce you to because you don't see them on the covers of magazines. I'd heard 'Silver Machine' but Russell Senior, who was in Pulp, got me into them. They had a song called 'Master Of The Universe' and we nicked the title in 1985 for one of our songs.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Senior #Song #People

I think the credit crunch is a brilliant thing. We should all stop moaning and start celebrating. When times are tough, it's an opportunity to start looking at life in a different way.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Opportunity #Thinking #Different

There's the famous thing that the A&R man from the record company is supposed to do: He's supposed to come into the studio and listen to the songs you've been recording and then say, 'Guys, I don't hear any singles.' And then everybody falls into a terrible depression because you have to write one.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Song #Fall #Writing

In some ways, I always thought you're better off behaving like a rock star when you're a normal person. Because if you do it as a rock star, you'll end up in the papers and your life will be made a misery.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Stars #Rocks #Way

I'm sure Sting's a lovely guy. It's just that nobody wants to be seen as that holier-than-thou thing. That over-earnestness is a bit of a problem with people in bands and celebrities or whatever.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#People #Guy #Lovely

I'm always nervous when I perform anyway.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Nervous

I guess I'm fairly insistent and maybe consistent. If I decide I'll do something, I generally will.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Consistent

I do write songs with a political dimension to them sometimes, but I'm always slightly appalled by it when I do.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Song #Writing #Political

I always thought that I might retire from any form of sexuality by the age of 40 and just become a dignified older person.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Age #Might #Sexuality

For me, the great thing about music is that anybody can do it.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Music #Music Is #Great Things

Don't think that the things around you don't count, because they do.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Thinking

But I've got ideas. I keep my little notebook, I've always got that with me. Hopefully there's more stuff than nonsense in there.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Notebook #Ideas #Littles

A Conservative government is necessary. There is no credible alternative.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Government #Alternatives #Conservative

The most entertaining songs don't always come from a nice place. In songs where I think I'm being really sensitive, they seem quite boring actually. I've found that the songs that come out of nastier, more misanthropic places are better.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Song #Nice #Thinking

I speak onstage to try to establish some method of communication. The songs are supposed to be a way of communicating. But speech and drinks and sometimes chocolates are also a way of communicating.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Song #Communication #Chocolate

Also, because people like to multitask, in a way if you've got a bit of music on in the background and the lyrical content is making you want to listen to it, then that would probably put you off the texting you wanted to do. I think people like things that just make that right kind of noise, but leave your brain free to do something else.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Thinking #People #Brain

Money isn't important, but you have to have enough, so you don't have to think about it. Thinking about money is a drag.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Thinking #Important #Enough

I appreciate people who try and use language in an interesting way.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#People #Appreciate #Interesting

I would like to believe in an afterlife; it makes things more palatable. But I'm not banking on it.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Believe #Afterlife #Banking

If you get involved in music expecting to make a living out of it, then you've picked the wrong thing to do. That shouldn't really be in your mind.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Mind #Expecting #Get Involved

In no way am I supporting or suggesting that a Conservative government is a good thing, far from it.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Government #Way #Conservative

I am proud, and more than a little excited, to be asked to work with Faber in an editorial capacity. It is my dearest hope that we will produce some fantastic books together.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Book #Together #Littles

I am passionate about keeping the human dimension in things. You have to keep the rough edges and the inconsistencies, that's what makes it interesting. I've always striven to be as sloppy as possible.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Interesting #Passionate #Dimensions

For TV you also get those pre-interviews when researchers ask you what you're going to say. The pre-interview drives me insane. If they've already decided the outcome, why don't I just hand in an essay? Maybe if we talk we'll find something out. I'd rather just have an awkward pause.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Hands #Awkward #Insane

The working class has been turned into a consuming class - a situation has been created where people value their worth by what they can afford.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Class #People #Situation

Anyone who thinks they're sexy needs their head checked.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Sexy #Thinking #Needs

It's good that I managed to hoodwink so many people. I am actually not that nice a person.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Nice #People #Persons

It's weird: The leader of the Conservative Party in England is two years younger than me, and I still don't really feel like a responsible adult.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Party #Years #Two

I got a pair of red, synthetic satin women's pants through the post the other day with a phone number on. That was quite strange. I haven't tried the phone number. In times of stress I may.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Stress #Phones #Numbers

I've stuck to the same things for twenty years. I try to look like a slightly edgy geography teacher. Like what a geography teacher looked like when I was in school. Cords, sensible shoes and glasses. I never liked geography much as a subject though. In fact the only geography teacher I can remember from school was a woman who had a moustache.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Teacher #School #Glasses

Noise is an easy thing to hide behind. If you make a lot of noise and shout behind that, nobody can tell what you're singing.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Singing #Noise #Easy

You get to a certain age and you just want to prove that you can still rock - that you've still got it.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Rocks #Age #Want

Well, once you've resigned yourself to the fact that you are the more mature pop performer and you're past the age you ever thought you would do it, you might as well do it as long as you can. As long as I can still lift a microphone, then I'll do it, you know.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Past #Long #Age

I'd never really wanted to have a really 'private' life before. But when somebody starts delving into it and printing details through the tabloids for shagging people you shouldn't have shagged, then that probably made me shy away a bit more from giving too much away.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#People #Giving #Details

Pornography takes all the reality out of sex and Disney does that to family life.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Sex #Reality #Doe

Every woman I've had a relationship with has found this maddening; the fact that I will talk about anything on the stage, and reveal all this stuff, and yet when I'm at home, I clam up and won't discuss anything intimate or personal.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Home #Stuff #Facts

I like bossy girls. I don't like girls who just do whatever they think you want them to do, and follow you around trying to please you all the time.
-- Jarvis Cocker

#Girl #Thinking #Trying