Quotes from David Bowie

When I was 18, I thought that, to be a romantic, you couldn't live past 30.

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.

I was never particularly fond of my voice.

I change my mind a lot. I usually don't agree with what I say very much. I'm an awful liar.

I cannot with any real integrity perform songs I've done for 25 years. I don't need the money. What I need is to feel that I am not letting myself down as an artist and that I still have something to contribute.

Frankly, if I could get away with not having to perform, I'd be very happy. It's not my favorite thing to do.

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

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.

You would think that a rock star being married to a supermodel would be one of the greatest things in the world. It is.

These are all personal crises, I'm sure, that I manifest in a song format and project into physical situations. You make little stories up about how you feel. It's as simple as that.

I'm always amazed that people take what I say seriously. I don't even take what I am seriously.

I always had a repulsive sort of need to be something more than human.

Confront a corpse at least once. The absolute absence of life is the most disturbing and challenging confrontation you will ever have.

Rock has always been the devil's music... I believe that rock & roll is dangerous... I feel that we're only heralding something even darker than ourselves.

When you think about it, Adolf Hitler was the first pop star.

Rock's always been the devil's music.

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?

I think the only music I didn't listen to was country and western, and that holds to this day.

I want people to hear musicians like Joe Cuba. He has done things to whole masses of Puerto Rican people. The music is fantastic and important.

I liked rock music, I kind of moved into that sphere, somehow thinking that somewhere along the line I'd be able to put the two together. And I suppose I very nearly did with the Ziggy character.

[David] Bowie went on to make best-selling music - funk, dance music, electronic music, while also being influenced by cabaret and jazz.

The name Bowie just appealed to me when I was younger. I was into a kind of heavy philosophy thing when I was 16 years old, and I wanted a truism about cutting through the lies and all that.

I'm drawn between the light and dark.

Once you lose that sense of wonder at being alive, you're pretty much on the way out...