Quotes from Dennis DeYoung

It's always best when everyone in the group is on the same page.

If you think marriage is gonna be easy, don't do it because when there are children involved, you screw up the rest of society.

It was a song I wrote for my wife as a present, never intending for it to be a Styx song. 'Babe' was a demo. The demo became the hit record, including all the background vocals, which were done by me.

I like being on a team and that's what a band is like. It's us against them, strength in numbers, and sharing the success and failure.

When the Beatles broke up, I thought to myself, 'Dude, seriously?'

A unique style comes from not being able to do things in a conventional manner. If David Byrne could have sung like Paul McCartney, he would have.

I wear sunglasses almost all the time except when I'm on stage.

I just believed in 1979 that prog rock was finished. I just saw the handwriting on the wall. And I believed that if we continued in that direction, our career would be finished. So I kind of led the band to making 'Cornerstone,' which is an album from my point of view which was not trying to be necessarily softer, but more natural.

I've lived a charmed life.

There are all kinds of pretensions about art, but I'm just a guy who sings for his supper.

I had worked so hard on three projects 1997 that it knocked the gas out of me. It was a mystery to the medical profession, but you can test positive for Epstein-Barr and not have it. When you get a post-viral syndrome, for some people it causes chronic fatigue or hearing loss. For me it became light sensitivity.

I'm very proud of it. 'Hunchback' contains some of my favorite music I've ever written in my life.

To be successful in your life, you have to be convinced in your own mind that you have the ability to accomplish your goals.

As an artist you always want to challenge yourself, but as you get older you want to bring the audience with you while expanding creatively.

Anyone in showbiz rock 'n' roll who says they're so tired of playing their hit songs, I want to smack them. I think it's an act. Because, look, you work your tail off to get people to validate you.

If you want your rock stars that are completely 100 percent serious about themselves and you want them to pretend like they're 25, I'm probably not the guy for that. But if you want to come and say, 'Hey, you know that guy right there, he's just being himself. I kind of like him for that,' you know, then that's me.

I am what I am. Whatever it was that made me what I am, I thought I should stay around and be that.

I was damn lucky to choose this profession. I had no idea when I started out that I was really an illusionist and a magician.

Winners are losers who got up and gave it one more try.

I could forgive anybody.

It's a good job when you get to have fans come up to you and thank you for writing your songs.

I formulated the theme behind 'The Grand Illusion' album after observing how American culture creates illusions through advertising and entertainment to convince us that our lives our lacking, in order to sell products.

I've tried to figure out ways to be less pleased other than the search for perfection. Talk about a thing that'll make you have a miserable life. On that quest, on that journey, down that path, there's a lot of feelings of, 'Why am I doing all this?'

If you try to do a genuine rock musical, rock people will think you're flaccid and Broadway audiences will think you're too loud.