Elvis Costello Quotes

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

You swore you wouldn't shout. If it's not your punch, then it's your pout.

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

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.

Your mind is made up but your mouth is undone.

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

So 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

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

Life is so strange
I don't know why
But somebody, somebody has to cry.

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

I took my better nature out, drowned it in a babbling stream/took the blossom of my youth and blew it all to smithereens.

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

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.

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

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

Well, I've had a lot of different experiences in music over the years. And not everything you do can satisfy everybody's idealised version of you.

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

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

Women hear rhythm differently than men.

He's got a mind like a sewer and a heart like a fridge.

I've worked hard, every single day since I left school. I think I have a Protestant work ethic.

Patsy Cline belongs shoulder-to-shoulder with Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald.

Oh, I know that she's disgusted,
cause she's feeling so abused.
She gets tired of the lust,
but it's so hard to refuse.

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.

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.

You think you're alone until you realize you're in it.
Now fear is here to stay,
love is here for a visit.

Though the passion still flutters and flickers, it never got into our knickers.

Smokey Robinson writes the heartfelt songs, whereas it was my job to write the songs about weakness and failure in love.

There are some things you can't cover up with lipstick and powder.

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

You've got a chemistry class; I want a piece of your mind;
You don't know what you started when you mixed it up with mine ...

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.

It's what's on the record not what labels on it. You know, that's like getting a box of cornflakes and eating the cardboard.

The only two things that motivate me and that matter to me are revenge
and guilt.

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

The way you look I understand how you were not impressed, but I heard you let that little friend of mine take off your party dress.

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

Oh, I used to be disgusted, but now I try to be amused.

The Internet is overrated. It's much smaller an innovation than people think it is. I don't think it's changed the way anybody makes music.

The battle with the bottle is nothing so novel.

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

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

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

You do have to be a bit careful with your voice. It is an instrument.

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

Sometimes I almost feel just like a human being.

You're drinking vintage Elvis Presley wine.

I've always felt writing a song was a bit like going on location. That's true in an almost literal sense. Where you are seeps in somehow.

You need a platform upon which to release an orchestral record, otherwise it's just going to be an obscurity.

I knew I was in trouble, but I thought I was in hell.

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

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

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

He's such a drag
He's not insane
It's just that everybody
Has to feel his pain.

It's a breath you took too late.
It's a death that's worse than fate.

Sometimes I wish that I could stop you from talking, when I hear the silly things that you say.

I woke up and one of us was crying.

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

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

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.

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.

My ultimate vocation in life is to be an irritant.

Sleeping with forgiveness in your heart for me.

Serious music usually doesn't pay.

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

I've had an unusual life. A life far removed from most people's experience.

Sometimes I write notes that I have difficulty singing.

Death wears a big hat.

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

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

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

I think when I was younger I was not very good at writing love songs that didn't have a twist.

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.

She's no angel.
He's no saint.

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

These are the sort of things that push you on in music - the curiosity, a passion for new ideas.

Elvis Presley and Puccini shall return.

Well, I used to be disgusted.
Now I try to be amused.

Living a very long time would be a very scary thing.

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

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

I wish you luck with a capital "F".

There's so many people to see. So many people to check up on and add to your collection.

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

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

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

Good manners and bad breath will get you nowhere.

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

Really the only thing holding a lot of records together is the personality of the singer, and the will to write all of these different things.

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

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.

But if I've done something wrong there's no "ifs" and "buts"
Cause I love you just as much as I hate your guts

But it's easier to say 'I love you',
than 'Yours, sincerely' I suppose.

People tend to repeat the same quotes at me that I said when I was 23. And of course, you say things then, and sometimes they're ill-advised.

It's the stupid details that my heart is breaking for.

There's a girl in this dress,
there's always a girl in distress.

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

It was a real party of swells.

People speak with enormous pomposity and arrogance about music.

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