Quotes from Elvis Costello

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

Oh, I used to be disgusted, but now I try to be amused.

You start out imitating your heroes, and the way you fuck up becomes your style.

Life is so strange I don't know why But somebody, somebody has to cry.

No use wishing now for any other sin.

It's a breath you took too late. It's a death that's worse than fate.

So you take her to the pictures, trying to become a fixture. Inch by inch trying to reach her, all the way through the second feature. Worrying about your physical fitness, tell me how you got this sickness?

I didn't know anything then about odd-metered bars of music, but as Burt told me years later, you don't count those beats, you just feel them and the tension that they create.

Well, I used to be disgusted. Now I try to be amused.

History repeats the old conceits

The only two things that motivate me and that matter to me are revenge and guilt.

There was a Fender Palomino acoustic lying in the corner in an open case, which, as you know, often symbolizes low morals or easy virtue in paintings of antiquity.

Trying to be so bad is bad enough Don't make me laugh by talking tough Don't put your heart out on your sleeve When your remarks are off the cuff

As you check your effects, check your reflection, I'm so affected in the face of your affection

There is music that seems to belong to you the moment that you hear it, and music about which you must be patient, awaiting the hour when it may reveal itself to you.

There's a girl here and She's almost you...

I could say it was the nights when I was lonely and you were the only one who'd talk. I could tell you that I like your sensitivity, when you know it's the way that you walk.

He's such a drag He's not insane It's just that everybody Has to feel his pain.

I think records started getting better again because everyone was dropping that tedious pose that there was no past. You could hear that The Clash were raiding their record collections for anything that they could turn into new songs.

There was no way to go back. Time and the wrecking ball have taken care of the rest.

were charged with getting the computer to obey their commands, as if it were a wild, untamable beast. They were the princes of

Now wild-eyed with the last of his vapor, her husband leapt to his feet and bellowed a desperate, enigmatic question to the first glimmer of dawn light. "Did you ever see a stare like a Persian cat?" And then, out like that light, he fell back in a stupor. •

Such petty provocations became routine, but we no longer had the benefit of surprise. We played a lot of good shows back then, but the more complacent a crowd seemed, the harder we pushed, and I probably ended up appearing faintly ridiculous at times. I felt like a clockwork toy running around in green light, pulling pantomime faces in vain or in spite. I'd wind people up and then let them down. We would either thrill and amaze or disappoint and disgrace and then get out of town.

We're not the ones making all the false promises, then getting caught in an obvious lie or with our fingers in the till. Maybe that's why they call them "the fortunes of war." They can be quoted on the stock exchange.