Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I knew I wanted to have a doll of myself on the cover. I thought, I wanna see myself as a Ken doll.
It's not music you would use to get a girl into bed. If anything, you're going to frighten her off.
When everything is visible and appears to be dumb, that's when the details take on larger meanings.
I am an immigrant with a Green Card and, therefore, I am not eligible to vote in a federal election.
The city is a body and a mind - a physical structure as well as a repository of ideas and information.
I always think the everyday is more relevant than anything too grand because we all have to deal with it.
It didn't even occur to me that I'm the last person in the world who should play salsa or Brazilian music.
I think I had a mild case of Asperger's as a younger guy, but that typically just wears off after a while.
As everything becomes digitized, there's the idea that things that can't be digitized become more valuable.
I resent the implication that I'm less of a musician and a worse person for not appreciating certain works.
I couldn't talk to people face to face, so I got on stage and started screaming and squealing and twitching.
To some extent I happily don't know what I'm doing. I feel that it's an artist's responsibility to trust that.
I'm no Lance Armstrong, but I do use a bike to get from place to place in Manhattan, a little bit of Brooklyn.
I subscribe to the myth that an artist's creativity comes from torment. Once that's fixed, what do you draw on?
One of the benefits of playing to small audiences in small clubs for a few years is that you're allowed to fail.
I wave to the double-decker buses from my bike, but the passengers never wave back. Why? Am I not an attraction?
I like to combine the dramatic emotional warmth of strings with the grooves and body business of drums and bass.
Cycling is a joy and faster than many other modes of transport, depending on the time of day. It clears the head.
I love writing. I don't claim to be great at it. Occasionally I get a good sentence off. But I love the activity.
It seems almost backwards to me that my music seems the more emotional outlet, and the art stuff seems more about ideas.
Interviewer: If I gave you fifty dollars, right now, what would you do with it?David Byrne: I would get something to eat.
There's a pervasive feeling that when somebody sings a song and records a song on a record, that it's their true feeling.
I do seem to like to combine the dramatic emotional warmth of strings with the grooves and body business of drums and bass.
I've been in beautiful landscapes where one is tempted to whip out a camera and take a picture. I've learned to resist that.
On a bike, being just slightly above pedestrian and car eye level, one gets a perfect view of the goings-on in one's own town.
In a certain way, you get some new tools to work with, but I don't know if it ultimately makes the creative process any easier.
The assumption is that your personal life has to be a mess to create, but how much chaos can you allow in before it takes over?
Cycling can be lonely, but in a good way. It gives you a moment to breathe and think, and get away from what you're working on.
I'm proud of 'Stop Making Sense,' but it's a little bit of an albatross; I can't compete with it, but I can't ignore it either.
PowerPoint may not be of any use for you in a presentation, but it may liberate you in another way, an artistic way. Who knows.
Is giving in to the photographer's presumably natural impulse to compose and light well sometimes okay and not okay other times?
The imminent demise of the large record companies as gatekeepers of the world's popular music is a good thing, for the most part.
I think I had a mild case of Asperger's as a younger guy, but that typically just wears off after a while. For some people, anyway.
I'm afraid that reason will triumph and that the world will become a place where anyone who doesn't fit that will become unnecessary
I'm afraid that reason will triumph and that the world will become a place where anyone who doesn't fit that will become unnecessary.
A lot of cities are making a real effort, neighborhood by neighborhood, to make themselves into a place where life can be pretty good.
I can't tell one from the other:I find you or you find me?There was a time before we were born If someone asks, this is where I'll be.
Sometimes it's a form of love just to talk to somebody that you have nothing in common with and still be fascinated by their presence.
Music was an experience, intimately married to your life. You could pay to hear music, but after you did, it was over, gone - a memory.
When things get so absurd and so stupid and so ridiculous that you just can't bear it, you cannot help but turn everything into a joke.
Deep down, I know I have this intuition or instinct that a lot of creative people have, that their demons are also what make them create.
Crime is a job. Sex is a job. Growing up is a job. School is a job. Going to parties is a job. Religion is a job. Being creative is a job
My take is that the kind of complexity which says we can always generate complexity from simple interactions following for example rules.
I've noticed that when I am selling a lot of records, certain things become easier. I'm not talking about getting a table in a restaurant.
People in Latin America... love America from afar and emulate America in some ways but also hate a lot of things that America does to them.
It's more about the stuff you think about when you're getting from place to place on a bicycle than it is about actually riding the bicycle.
The true face of smoking is disease, death and horror - not the glamour and sophistication the pushers in the tobacco industry try to portray.
Performing is a thing in itself, a distinct skill, different from making recordings. And for those who can do it, it's a way to make a living.
The voting booth joint is a great leveler; the whole neighborhood - rich, poor, old, young, decrepit and spunky - they all turn out in one day.
I'm concerned that my technical skills have advanced to the point where I can get closer to what I'm aiming for, which is not such a good thing.