Quotes from Ozzy Osbourne

Wow, dude, come in,' said Tommy [Lee], when I rang the door-bell. 'I can't believe it. Ozzy Osbourne's in my house.'

My wife can sniff out a lie from six thousand miles away. And I'm the world's worst liar, anyway.

I think war is just part of human nature. And I'm fascinated by human nature – especially the dark side. I always have been. It doesn't make me a Devil worshipper, no more than being interested in Hitler makes me a Nazi. I mean, if I'm a Nazi, how come I married a woman who's half Jewish?

I'd always wanted to play an instrument myself, but my folks didn't have the dough to buy me one, and I didn't have the patience to learn anyway. My attention span was five seconds.

Like my father always said to me, if you ever pull a weapon on somebody – no matter what it is – you've got to be fully prepared to use it, because if you're not, the other guy will see the doubt in your eyes, and he'll take it off you and use it on you instead. Then you're really in trouble.

I was a free man, and I'd survived prison without being arse raped or beaten to a pulp. So how come I felt so f**king sad?

And if it wasn't as good as before, what was the point of doing it? There wasn't a point, as far as I was concerned.

One thing I've learned about myself over the years is that I'm no good at dealing with people dying. It's not that I'm afraid of it – I know that everyone's gotta go eventually – but I can't help thinking that there are only one or two ways of being brought into this world, but there are so many f**ked-up ways of leaving it.

On Friday the thirteenth of February 1970, Black Sabbath went on sale. I felt like I'd just been born. But the critics f**king hated it.

Meanwhile, we'd been kicked out of school at fifteen and had worked in factories and slaughtered animals for a living, but then we'd made something of ourselves, even though the whole system was against us. So how upset could we be when clever people said we were no good?

We'd recorded Black Sabbath in one day. Sabotage took about four thousand years.

Bands like The Move , Traffic and The Moody Blues were proving that you didn't have to be from Liverpool to be successful.

The music business is like any other business, y'know? When sales are going well, everything's hunky-f**king-dory. But the second something goes wrong, it's all blood and law-suits.

The only gig I can remember playing in those very early days — and I think it was with Rare Breed , but it could have been under a different name, with different band members, 'cos line-ups changed so often back then — was the Birmingham Fire Station's Christmas party. The audience consisted of two firemen, a bucket and a ladder. We made enough dough for half a shandy (beer mixed with lemonade), split six ways.

In 1968, John Osbourne was an up-and-coming rock 'n' roll star,' I would say in this fake movie-announcer voice as I wandered around the house. 'In 1969, he was an up-and-coming garbageman.'

I remember taking my entire wardrobe with me on that trip. It consisted of one shirt on a wire hanger, and one pair of underpants in a carrier bag.

If you don't have a sense of humour when you're in a band, you end up like f**king Emerson, Lake and Palmer, making eight-disc LPs so you can all have your own three-hour f**king solos. And who wants to listen to that bollocks?

During the first break-in I grabbed a load of hangers and thought, 'Magic' , I'll be able to sell this stuff down the pub. But I'd forgotten to take a flashlight with me, and it turned out that the clothes I'd nicked were a bunch of babies' bibs and toddlers' underpants. I might as well have tried to sell a turd.

He [dad] always had some kind of trouble with his leg. He'd have bandages wrapped around it all the time but he'd never go and see a doctor. He'd rather have dropped dead than go to a doctor. He was terrified of them, like a lot of people his age were. And he'd never take a day off work. If he ever stayed at home feeling ill, it was time to call the undertaker.

Never in a million years did I think I'd end up making a career out of singing. I didn't think it was possible. As far as I knew, the only way I could make any dough was to go and work in a factory, like everyone else in Aston. Or rob a f**king bank.

Sharon saved my life, Sharon is my life, and I love her. And I was terrified that I was going to lose her. But as much as I wanted everything to be normal and right, I was terribly sick, physically and mentally.

Killing a pig for a good old fry-up is one thing. But there's no excuse for being cruel, even if you're a bored teenage kid.

Welcome to New York,' said the sign. [...] We got our luggage from the carousel and went to queue in the taxi rank outside the arrivals hall. [...] As we waited, this massive yellow car drove by. It must have had nineteen or twenty doors on it. 'I knew the cars here were big,' I slurred, 'but not that big!' 'It's a limousine, you idiot,' said Tony [Iommi].

I'm no good with business, me. I'm the last person to ask when it comes to contracts and dough and all that.