Quotes About Relevance

But I think what happened was that Clinton knew how to fight back. And the way he fought back was on the issues - being tough in staying on the things that mattered to people in their lives.

If I could get the respect of 14-year-olds, I'm happy. They're the toughest audience.

If you think about stripping away 80 percent of the things that don't matter and focusing on the the 20 percent that will actually make a difference, I think you'll find great results even in the toughest of situations and the harshest of environments.

Music never dies. Do we really need another Madonna tour? Does she have to compete with women performers 25 years her junior?

Some people are still not into us. That makes sense. We haven't really done a lot of press. We haven't put ourselves out there in ways that a lot of people would know we are still around. Unless you tour or record, they don't know you are around.

When I stopped touring in the early '80s for a few years, it was a mistake looking back. I lost touch with my audience in a way and I think that was a bad career move.

If you win the conference tournament, it doesn't mean anything.

Some tournaments maybe are important for others, while some are important for me.

One of the reasons we survive as a band is that we are seen as a band of today. We don't want to be seen as a band that tours and plays old songs. We feel that we are making the best music of our careers.

I would never take part in one of those Eighties nostalgia tours, although I've been asked many times, because it's like admitting you have nothing new to offer. As long as I can keep making music I'm happy with, and people want to come to my gigs to hear it, I'll carry on.

One of the reasons we had our reunion tours in the '90s was the unexpectedness of how the music had gone, that these songs we'd recorded should have somehow become timeless classics.

For years everyone looked toward the demise of radio when television came along. Before that, they thought talking movies might eliminate radio as well. But radio just keeps getting stronger.

We need to take music out of the ivory tower - both for musicians and for the public. Otherwise, classical music will not survive the 21st century.

I want to entertain my audience. I know when then come and see me play, if I don't do 'Swing Town,' 'Jet Airliner,' 'Take the Money and Run,' 'True Fine Love,' 'Fly Like an Eagle,' 'The Joker,' blah blah blah - if I don't do all those songs, they'll be extremely disappointed. I love to do them.

They put all this money into these huge films and then no one goes to see them. That sort of shows they're out of touch. Then everyone in town passes on my little movie and it does really well.

When an audience is affected in a way that I've seen with some people, it's so inspiring to me an actor. You know that you're on the right track and you're doing work that can affect people. When that goes hand-in-hand with important issues that we're still living with, and we will be for a long time, sadly, it's so confirming of everything.

I look at the people's careers who I want to emulate, like Audra McDonald, Kristin Chenoweth, Bernadette Peters... They've all found the key to longevity in this business, and that is diversifying, doing as many things as possible to keep yourself relevant, and so hopefully I'm on the same track as all those amazing women.

Nowadays, who actually listens to the tracks on an album, anyway?

If they [Guns N' Roses] didn't get back together soon they would have missed their window and no one would have cared in 3 or 4 years.

If history is really relevant in today's world, the proposition doesn't command much respect. Perhaps the past is a different country, but if so no one much wants to travel there.

Readers travel so fast they don't stop to decipher the meaning of obscure headlines.

You should go to a pear tree for pears, not to an elm.

Audiences trust Westerns when you hit the right tone. I think they're not in vogue, but they will always be in vogue when you hit the right note.

It is not necessary to bury the truth. It is sufficient merely to delay it until nobody cares.