English singer & songwriter, David Robert Jones Aka, David Bowie wowed the world with his unique voice and music style. Born and raised in Brixton, South London, where his love for music and the arts first developed.
An influential and talented 20th-century musician who was an inspiration to those seeking a career in the music industry. David Bowie is a late great artist who will forever live on in the hearts of his loyal fans.
David Bowie’s Best Quotes
In honor of Mister Bowie, here are 50 unforgettable David Bowie quotes.
1. “There, in the chords and melodies, is everything I want to say. The words help to jolly it along. It’s always been my way of expressing what, for me, is inexpressible by any other means.” — David Bowie
2. “The music itself is going to become like running water or electricity. So it’s like, just take advantage of these last few years because none of this is ever going to happen again. You’d better be prepared for doing a lot of touring because that’s really the only unique situation that’s going to be left.” — David Bowie
3. “As you get older the questions come down to two or three. How long have I got and what am I gonna do with the time I’ve got left?” — David Bowie
4. “If I had a talent, it was for looking askew at everything, possibly more than my contemporaries. But I had to really push myself to be a writer.” — David Bowie
5. “The absolute transformation of everything that we ever thought about music will take place within 10 years, and nothing is going to be able to stop it. I see absolutely no point in pretending that it’s not going to happen. I’m fully confident that copyright, for instance, will no longer exist in 10 years.” — David Bowie
6. “I find only freedom in the realms of eccentricity.” — David Bowie
7. “I always had a repulsive need to be something more than human.” — David Bowie
8. “Heathenism is a state of mind. You can take it that I’m referring to one who does not see his world. He has no mental light. He destroys almost unwittingly. He cannot feel any God’s presence in his life. He is the 21st-century man.” — David Bowie
9. “Make the best of every moment. We’re not evolving. We’re not going anywhere.” — David Bowie
10. “Searching for music is like searching for God. They’re very similar. There’s an effort to reclaim the unmentionable, the unsayable, the unseeable, the unspeakable, all those things, comes into being a composer and to writing music and to search for notes and pieces of musical information that don’t exist.” — David Bowie
11. “I believe that I often bring out the best in somebody’s talents.” — David Bowie
12. “On the other hand, what I like my music to do to me is awaken the ghosts inside of me. Not the demons, you understand, but the ghosts.” — David Bowie
13. “It’s a lot more fun progressing than looking back.” — David Bowie
14. “I felt I really wanted to back off from music completely and just work within the visual arts in some way. I started painting quite passionately at that time.” — David Bowie
15. “There’s an effort to reclaim the unmentionable, the unsayable, the unspeakable, all those things come into being a composer, into writing music, into searching for notes and pieces of musical information that don’t exist.” — David Bowie
16. “Gentleness clears the soul, love cleans the mind and makes it free.” — David Bowie
17. “It amazes me sometimes that even intelligent people will analyze a situation or make a judgment after only recognizing the standard or traditional structure of a piece.” — David Bowie
18. “I’m well past the age where I’m acceptable. You get to a certain age and you are forbidden access. You’re not going to get the kind of coverage that you would like in music magazines, you’re not going to get played on the radio and you’re not going to get played on television. I have to survive on word of mouth.” — David Bowie
19. “The truth is, of course, is that there is no journey. We are arriving and departing all at the same time.” — David Bowie
20. “I’m not a prophet or a stone aged man, just a mortal with potential of a superman. I’m living on.” — David Bowie
21. “I thought that I wrote songs and wrote the music, and that was sort of what I thought I was best at doing. And because nobody else was ever doing my songs, I felt – you know, I had to go out and do them.” — David Bowie
22. “There’s a terror in knowing what the world is about” — David Bowie
23. “I don’t profess to have music as my big wheel and there are a number of other things as important to me apart from music. Theatre and mime, for instance.” — David Bowie
24. “When I’m stuck for closing to a lyric, I will drag out my last resort: overwhelming illogic.” — David Bowie
25. “The moment you know you know you know.” — David Bowie
26. “I wish myself to be a prop, if anything, for my songs. I want to be the vehicle for my songs. I would like to color the material with as much visual expression as is necessary for that song.” — David Bowie
27. “I don’t like to read things that people write about me. I’d rather read what kids have to say about me because it’s not their profession to do that.” — David Bowie
28. “You can neither win nor lose if you don’t run the race.” — David Bowie
29. “Confront a corpse at least once. The absolute absence of life is the most disturbing and challenging confrontation you will ever have.” — David Bowie
30. “Fame itself… doesn’t really afford you anything more than a good seat in a restaurant.” — David Bowie
31. “I’m just an individual who doesn’t feel that I need to have somebody qualify my work in any particular way. I’m working for me.” — David Bowie
32. “I’m in awe of the universe, but I don’t necessarily believe there’s an intelligence or agent behind it. I do have a passion for the visual in religious rituals, though, even though they may be completely empty and bereft of substance. The incense is powerful and provocative, whether Buddhist or Catholic.” — David Bowie
33. “You would think that a rock star being married to a supermodel would be one of the greatest things in the world. It is.” — David Bowie
Related: Sir Paul McCartney’s Best Quotes
34. “Don’t let me hear you say life takes you nowhere, angel.” — David Bowie
35. “As you get older, the questions come down to about two or three. How long? And what do I do with the time I’ve got left?” — David Bowie
36. “I’m well past the age where I’m acceptable. You get to a certain age and you are forbidden access. You’re not going to get the kind of coverage that you would like in music magazines, you’re not going to get played on radio and you’re not going to get played on television. I have to survive on word of mouth.” — David Bowie
37. “To not be modest about it, you’ll find that with only a couple of exceptions, most of the musicians that I’ve worked with have done their best work by far with me.” — David Bowie
38. “I’ll paint you moments of gold, I’ll spin you Valentine evenings…” — David Bowie
39. “What I have is a malevolent curiosity. That’s what drives my need to write and what probably leads me to look at things a little askew. I do tend to take a different perspective from most people.” — David Bowie
40. “I’ve started doing book reviews for Barnes & Noble! They saw that I did a lot of book reviews on the site, and they figured that it might not be a bad thing if they got me to do some for them as well. I gave them five categories I’d be interested in reviewing, from art to fiction to music.” — David Bowie
41. “People have attention spans of five seconds and as much depth as a glass of water.” — David Bowie
42. “I’ve always regretted that I never was able to talk openly with my parents, especially with my father. I’ve heard and read so many things about my family that I can no longer believe anything; every relative I question has a completely different story from the last.” — David Bowie
43. “I’m an instant star. Just add water and stir.” — David Bowie
44. “Turn and face the strange.” — David Bowie
45. “What I do is I write mainly about very personal and rather lonely feelings, and I explore them in a different way each time. You know, what I do is not terribly intellectual. I’m a pop singer for Christ’s sake. As a person, I’m fairly uncomplicated.” — David Bowie
46. “Even though I was very shy, I found I could get on stage if I had a new identity.” — David Bowie
Related: Freddie Mercury’s Best Quotes and Lines from Songs
47. “Nobody reads anymore, nobody goes out and looks and explores the society and culture they were brought up on.” — David Bowie
48. “For me, the world that I inhabit in reality is probably a very different world than the one people expect that I would be in.” — David Bowie
49. “I have all the admiration in the world for somebody like Bono, who really puts himself on the line and tries actively to do something about the world situation.” David Bowie
50. “All my big mistakes are when I try to second-guess or please an audience. My work is always stronger when I get very selfish about it.” — David Bowie
We hope these David Bowie quote inspire your week
Gone but not forgotten, the lyrics in Bowie’s songs will leave a lasting impression to those who listen with care. If you’d like some uplifting words of encouragement for the future, go back and review David Bowie’s above quotes.
Photo credits: Photobra|Adam Bielawski / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)
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