Quotes from Elvis Costello

You do have to be a bit careful with your voice. It is an instrument.

I don't think I was ever particularly mean. I can certainly think of some idiotic exchanges I've had. I was accused of destroying pop music, like Wagner destroyed opera - a guy in Germany started ranting that at me.

You have to face the fact that I have no reputation as a composer; I have my reputation as a songwriter and a performer-and that opportunity came this summer, when I was invited to perform at the Lincoln Centre festival in New York... three nights.

But there are things in Il Sogno that the methods of The Delivery Man could never achieve.

I know that when I make a record like The Delivery Man as a contrast to even Il Sogno, this is going to reach a wider audience, because it communicates in that very direct way.

I'm a man with a mission in two or three editions And I'm giving you a longing look Everyday, everyday, everyday I write the book.

Why'd you have to say that there's always someone who can do it better than I can And don't you think that I know that walkin' on water won't make me a miracle man

I believe that music is connected by human passions and curiosities rather than by marketing strategies.

The radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools tryin' to anesthetize the way that you feel.

And I don't feel any form of music is beyond me in the sense of that I don't understand it or I don't have some love for some part of it.

Music is more like water than a rhinoceros. It doesn't charge madly down one path. It runs away in every direction.

Songs are more powerful than books.

Don't start me talking, I could talk all night. My mind goes sleepwalking while I'm putting the world right.

My dad had a steady job with a really major dance band from '54 till '68, and then quit because he wanted to play different music. He wanted to sing about peace. He believed in these things.

For all the courage that we never had, I'm just about glad.

The cost of living in sin would make a poor man out of Paul Getty.

Good manners and bad breath will get you nowhere.

There's no money back guarantee on future happiness.

I've never had any real concern about posterity. I hope some people will be sorry when I'm not here, but I'm not playing for that.

It's a petty thing, but I wouldn't join the Scouts when I was a kid, 'cause you had to swear allegiance to the queen. I'm just not a royalist. I think it's idiotic, a hereditary principle.

Can a mere song change a people's minds? I doubt that it is so. But a song can infiltrate your heart and the heart may change your mind.

Your mind is made up but your mouth is undone.

We're all just animals. That's all we are, and everything else is just an elaborate justification of our instincts. That's where music comes from. And romantic poetry. And bad novels.

I used to be disgusted; now I try to be amused.