David Bowie quotes

Born
January 8, 1947, Brixton, London, England.

Died
January 10, 2016.

Occupation
Musician, songwriter, actor, singer.

David Robert Jones “David Bowie” was an English singer, songwriter and actor. He was a figure in popular music for over five decades, regarded by critics and musicians as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s.

The skin of my character in ‘The Man Who Fell to Earth’ was some concoction, a spermatozoon of an alien nature that was obscene and weird-looking.
– David Bowie

I’m rather kind of old school, thinking that when an artist does his work, it’s no longer his… I just see what people make of it.
– David Bowie

I was born in London 1947, after the war. A real wartime baby. I went to school in Brixton, and then I moved up to Yorkshire, which is in the north of England. I lived on the farms up there.
– David Bowie

I always had a repulsive need to be something more than human.
– David Bowie

I re-invented my image so many times that I’m in denial that I was originally an overweight Korean woman.
– David Bowie

What I like to do is try to make a difference with the work I do.
– David Bowie

I’ve never responded well to entrenched negative thinking.
– David Bowie

It would be my guess that Madonna is not a very happy woman. From my own experience, having gone through persona changes like that, that kind of clawing need to be the center of attention is not a pleasant place to be.
– David Bowie

There, in the chords and melodies, is everything I want to say. The words just jolly it along. It’s always been my way of expressing what, for me, is inexpressible by any other means.
– David Bowie

But I’m pretty good with collaborative thinking. I work well with other people.
– David Bowie

The Americans at heart are a pure and noble people; things to them are in black and white. It’s either ‘rawk’ or it’s not. We Brits putter around in the grey area.
– David Bowie

I’m not a prophet or a stone aged man, just a mortal with potential of a superman. I’m living on.
– David Bowie

I think in the ’70s that there was a general feeling of chaos, a feeling that the idea of the ’60s as ‘ideal’ was a misnomer. Nothing seemed ideal anymore. Everything seemed in-between.
– David Bowie

I wanted to imbue Ziggy with real flesh and blood and muscle, and it was imperative that I find Ziggy and be him.
– David Bowie

I would dream. I focused all my attention on going to America. The subculture, James Dean, the rock n’ roll, the beat writers.
– David Bowie

I couldn’t have written things like ‘Low’ and ‘Heroes,’ those particular albums, if it hadn’t have been for Berlin and the kind of atmosphere I felt there.
– David Bowie

Age doesn’t bother me. So many of my heroes were older guys. It’s the lack of years left that weighs far heavier on me than the age that I am.
– David Bowie

I never could get over the fact that The Pixies formed, worked and separated without America taking them to its heart or even recognizing their existence for the most part.
– David Bowie

Tomorrow belongs to those who can hear it coming.
– David Bowie

I believe that I often bring out the best in somebody’s talents.
– David Bowie

I’m always amazed that people take what I say seriously. I don’t even take what I am seriously.
– David Bowie

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

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 Gods presence in his life. He is the 21st century man.
– David Bowie

Being a hybrid maker off and on over the years, I’m very comfortable with the idea and have been the subject of quite a few pretty good mash-ups myself.
– David Bowie

I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise it won’t be boring.
– David Bowie

I find only freedom in the realms of eccentricity.
– David Bowie

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 our world situation.
– David Bowie

I think much has been made of this alter ego business. I mean, I actually stopped creating characters in 1975 – for albums, anyway.
– David Bowie

When I heard Little Richard, I mean, it just set my world on fire.
– David Bowie

It is amazing how a new child can refocus one’s direction seconds after its birth.
– David Bowie

I do value the respect I get from my contemporaries, but to have Oasis cover my song, to have Puff Daddy cover a song, to have Goldie come along to my gigs – that’s where my ego is at. To have my fellow musicians like what I do, that’s very cool.
– David Bowie

But I’ve got to think of myself as the luckiest guy. Robert Johnson only had one album’s worth of work as his legacy. That’s all that life allowed him.
– David Bowie

I think it all comes back to being very selfish as an artist. I mean, I really do just write and record what interests me and I do approach the stage shows in much the same way.
– David Bowie

I don’t see any boundaries between any of the art forms. I think they all inter-relate completely.
– David Bowie

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

Frankly, I mean, sometimes the interpretations I’ve seen on some of the songs that I’ve written are a lot more interesting than the input that I put in.
– David Bowie

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

It amazes me sometimes that even intelligent people will analyze a situation or make a judgement after only recognizing the standard or traditional structure of a piece.
– David Bowie

Tony Visconti and I had been wanting to work together again for a few years now. Both of us had fairly large commitments and for a long time we couldn’t see a space in which we could get anything together.
– David Bowie

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

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

Nearly all the synth work on Heathen is mine and some of the piano.
– David Bowie

I had to resign myself, many years ago, that I’m not too articulate when it comes to explaining how I feel about things. But my music does it for me, it really does.
– David Bowie

I’m not one of those guys that has a great worldview. I kind of deal with terror and fear and isolation and abandonment.
– David Bowie

The humanists’ replacement for religion: work really hard and somehow you’ll either save yourself or you’ll be immortal. Of course, that’s a total joke, and our progress is nothing. There may be progress in technology but there’s no ethical progress whatsoever.
– David Bowie

I could imagine at a certain age, when I have no vocal cords left, that I would find a young man who could sing my parts for me. But I don’t see why I would stop.
– David Bowie

I thought that I wrote songs and wrote 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

I don’t crave applause. I’m not one of those guys who comes alive on stage. I’m much more alive at home, I think.
– David Bowie

I think Mustique is Duchampian – it will always provide an endless source of delight.
– David Bowie

I knew that I was ‘interesting’ at 18 because I was aware that I could get away with doing things on stage.
– David Bowie

I never really felt like a rock singer or a rock star or whatever.
– David Bowie

There are times when I prefer a cerebral moment with an artist, and I’ll just enjoy the wit of a Picabia or a Duchamp. It amuses me that they thought that what they did would be a good way of making art.
– David Bowie

Pixies and Sonic Youth were so important to the eighties.
– David Bowie

I wanted to be Gerry Mulligan, only, see, I didn’t have any kind of technique. So I thought, well, baritone sax is kind of easier; I can manage that – except I couldn’t afford a baritone, so I bought an alto, which was the same fingering.
– David Bowie

I still derive immense pleasure from remembering how many hod-carrying brickies were encouraged to put on lurex tights and mince up and down the high street, having been assured by know-it-alls like me that a smidgen of blusher really attracted the birds.
– David Bowie

I realized the other day that I’ve lived in New York longer than I’ve lived anywhere else. It’s amazing: I am a New Yorker. It’s strange; I never thought I would be.
– David Bowie

Anxiety and spiritual searching have been consistent themes with me, and that figures into my worldview. But I tend to make my songs sound like relationship songs.
– David Bowie

I don’t have stylistic loyalty. That’s why people perceive me changing all the time. But there is a real continuity in my subject matter. As an artist of artifice, I do believe I have more integrity than any one of my contemporaries.
– David Bowie

However, there’s no theme or concept behind Heathen, just a number of songs but somehow there is a thread that runs through it that is quite as strong as any of my thematic type albums.
– David Bowie

That’s the shock: All cliches are true. The years really do speed by. Life really is as short as they tell you it is. And there really is a God – so do I buy that one? If all the other cliches are true… Hell, don’t pose me that one.
– David Bowie

I feel confident imposing change on myself. It’s a lot more fun progressing than looking back. That’s why I need to throw curve balls.
– David Bowie

I wanted to prove the sustaining power of music.
– David Bowie

I’m an instant star. Just add water and stir.
– David Bowie

Fame itself… doesn’t really afford you anything more than a good seat in a restaurant.
– David Bowie

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