Elvis Costello Quotes

I wanna bite the hand that feeds me. I wanna bite that hand so badly. I want to make them wish they'd never seen me.

I'm a working travelling musician, but just on a bigger scale...

'Content' is a word that has never sat well with me. Like 'maturity'. They are two words I've never liked. I think they imply some sort of decay. A settling.

[Commercial] radio is absolutely the enemy of music. They are my sworn and mortal enemy, and I will have nothing to do with them.

You'll never be alone in the bone orchard.

Serious music usually doesn't pay.

Even in a perfect world where everyone was equal. I'd still own the film rights and be working on the sequel.

I find it to be the ultimate backhanded compliment when you are compared against yourself.

I think when I was younger I was not very good at writing love songs that didn't have a twist.

Good manners and bad breath will get you nowhere.

Turn up the TV. No one listening will suspect, even your mother won't detect it, no your father won't know. they think that I've got no respect but everything means less than zero.

I've had a lot of different experiences in music over the years.And not everything you do can satisfy everybody's idealised version of you.

It's what's on the record not what labels on it. You know, that's like getting a box of cornflakes and eating the cardboard.

Days of Dutch courage, just three French letters, and a German sense of humour.

She's filing her nails while they are dragging the lake.

If it wasn't for some acci-accidents, then some would never learn.

Obviously the people that I admired, like the Beatles, were really into rock'n'roll, but it was already a little past rock'n'roll when I started listening and making my own choices about music.

Cause somewhere in the Quizling Clinic, there's a shorthand typist taking seconds over minutes.

She pulls the eyes out with a face like a magnet.

Why'd you have to say that there's always someone who can do it better than I can And don't you think that I know that walkin' on water won't make me a miracle man

You swore you wouldn't shout. If it's not your punch, then it's your pout.

You think you're alone until you realize you're in it. Now fear is here to stay, love is here for a visit.

It's a dangerous game that comedy plays. Sometimes it tells you the truth; sometimes it delays it.

Clowntime is over Time to take cover While others just talk and talk Somebody's watching where the others don't walk.

I love you more than anything in this world. I don't expect that will last.

You've got a chemistry class; I want a piece of your mind; You don't know what you started when you mixed it up with mine.

There are some things you can't cover up with lipstick and powder.

Now I just don't know who to tell to go to hell Who put the old devil in the distorted angel?

Well there's a line that you must toe and it'll soon be time to go but it's darker than you know in those Complicated Shadows

Life for me is about movement.

I've worked hard, every single day since I left school. I think I have a Protestant work ethic.

I really thought twice about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when that came in. I always was of a mind that it's an inherently stupid idea to put something like that in a glass case.

Can a mere song change a people's minds? I doubt that it is so. But a song can infiltrate your heart and the heart may change your mind.

It was a real party of swells.

Life is so strangeI don't know whyBut somebody, somebody has to cry.

She's no angel.He's no saint.

He's such a dragHe's not insaneIt's just that everybodyHas to feel his pain.

You think you're alone until you realize you're in it.Now fear is here to stay, love is here for a visit.

I could say it was the nights when I was lonelyand 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.

Death wears a big hat.

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

Oh, I know that she's disgusted, cause she's feeling so abused.She gets tired of the lust, but it's so hard to refuse.

I don't wanna be a lover, I just wanna be your victim.

But it's easier to say 'I love you', than 'Yours, sincerely' I suppose.

There's a girl in this dress, there's always a girl in distress.