Quotes from David Byrne

I am an immigrant with a Green Card and, therefore, I am not eligible to vote in a federal election.

To shake your rump is to be environmentally aware.

When we started, a lot of bands sounded really different from one another.

The voting booth joint is a great leveler; the whole neighborhood - rich, poor, old, young, decrepit and spunky - they all turn out in one day.

There's a certain amount of freedom involved in cycling: you're self-propelled and decide exactly where to go. If you see something that catches your eye to the left, you can veer off there, which isn't so easy in a car, and you can't cover as much ground walking.

I'm no Lance Armstrong, but I do use a bike to get from place to place in Manhattan, a little bit of Brooklyn.

I'd like to be known for more than being the guy in the big suit.

That's the thing about pictures: they seduce you.

I couldn't take pictures of green rolling hills.

I knew I wanted to have a doll of myself on the cover. I thought, I wanna see myself as a Ken doll.

I do seem to like to combine the dramatic emotional warmth of strings with the grooves and body business of drums and bass.

You can know or not know how a car runs and still enjoy riding in a car.

I certainly agree that putting everything into little genres is counterproductive. You're not going to get too many surprises if you only focus on the stuff that fits inside the box that you know.

When everything is worth money, then money is worth nothing.

The imminent demise of the large record companies as gatekeepers of the world's popular music is a good thing, for the most part.

As music becomes less of a thing--a cylinder, a cassette, a disc--and more ephemeral, perhaps we will begin to assign an increasing value to live performances again.

It's not music you would use to get a girl into bed. If anything, you're going to frighten her off.

With music, you often don't have to translate it. It just affects you, and you don't know why.

Why not invest in the future of music, instead of building fortresses to preserve its past?

You create a community with music, not just at concerts but by talking about it with your friends.

I found music to be the therapy of choice.

I've rarely seen video screens used well in a music concert.

I've noticed a lot of younger artists have less fear of doing different sorts of things, whether it's various types of music, or gallery artists moving between video and sculpture and drawing.

I'm not suggesting people abandon musical instruments and start playing their cars and apartments, but I do think the reign of music as a commodity made only by professionals might be winding down.