Quotes from Elton John

the mindset of the times: that happiness was somehow less important than keeping up appearances.

You can work as hard as you like, and plan as carefully as you want, but there are moments when it's just about a hunch, about trusting your instincts, or about fate.

I wished that things had been different, but it was what it was. Sometimes you have to look at the hand you've been dealt and throw in

You know, I've got 1,000 candles in a closet in my home in Atlanta, and I suppose that is excessive. But I'll tell you what: it's the best-smelling closet you've ever been in in your life.

It was a reminder that you only get so long, that you never know what's around the corner. Maybe that gave me some real clarity about what was important to me about life. Why try and deny how you really feel, deep down, about something as fundamental as fatherhood?

I looked like a finalist in a competition to find Britain's least convincing flower child.

The launderette, you say? Hmm. Delightful as a career manning the tumble dryers sounds, I think I'll stick with songwriting for a bit longer.

The only problem was that I was incredibly houseproud, so they'd end up having sex on the snooker table with me shouting, 'Make sure you don't come on the baize!' which tended to puncture the atmosphere a bit.

There aren't many rules in rock and roll, but there are some: follow your gut musical instincts, make sure you read the small print before you sign and, if at all possible, try not to form a band with someone who fucks chickens up the arse and decapitates them. Or even talks about it.

I don't know if you've ever been driven very slowly through a crowd of screaming fans, in full view of the world's media, on a gold-painted golf cart with a pair of enormous illuminated glasses and a bow tie on the front, but if you haven't, I can tell you that it's a pretty excruciating experience.

no one was happy, everyone felt they were stuck there against their will, everyone was looking for something else, everyone knew there was a better life for them outside its walls.

Im a bitch, Im a bitch Oh the bitch is back Stone cold sober as a matter of fact I can bitch, I can bitch `cause Im better than you Its the way that I move The things that I do

felt like there was an unstoppable momentum behind me that carried me on no matter how exhausted I was, that drove me through any kind of setback.

But I'd rather try and build a bridge to someone on the opposite side to me than put up a wall.

He was a typical British man of the fifties in that he seemed to regard any display of emotion, other than anger, as evidence of a fatal weakness of character.

From the day we arrive on the planet And blinking step into the sun There's more to be seen than can ever be seen More to do than can ever be done Some say, eat or be eaten Some say, live and let live But, all are agreed as they join the stampede You should never take more than you give In the circle of life It's the wheel of fortune It's the leap of faith It's the band of hope Till we find our place On the path unwinding In the circle The Circle of Life

the gramophone on them. They seemed like magical objects; the fact that you put a needle on them and sound mysteriously came out amazed me.

This was not the way anyone of sound mind in America in 1970 looked.

And there was no getting around the fact that I was now writing a song about a warthog that farted a lot. Admittedly, I thought it was a pretty good song about a warthog who farted a lot: at the risk of appearing big-headed, I'm pretty sure that in a list of the greatest songs ever written about warthogs who fart a lot, mine would come in somewhere near the top.

I'm sure the music at Boy would have sounded as wonderful as ever, but there does come a point where, in that environment, you start to feel like the dowager duchess at the debutantes' ball, peering down your pince-nez at the latest arrivals.

The next morning found me pacing around the house, trying to work out what was the earliest you could call someone who'd been out the previous night at a Halloween party, without looking like the kind of person they'd eventually have to get a restraining order out against.

Living is the best and we must live every day as it comes.

I was constantly in fear, metaphorically speaking, of getting a smack.

And for another, if you've spent your teens trying to play 'Roll Out The Barrel' while the clientele of a Northwood Hills pub beat the living shit out of each other, you don't scare that easily. In