F. F. Bruce Quotes

When I got into "Anna Karenina" and "Brothers Karamazov" and "Crime and Punishment," that was the stuff that - that had a big effect on me, because it was so psychological.

I'm not in any rush. I'm not somebody who, if I write a song, I get it out. That's not something I've ever really quite done.

What you were singing about was believable and convincing, that's the key to a great singer.

A great singer has to learn how to inhabit a song.

Small unit democracy, I found early on, didn't work for me.

That's what being a front man is all about - the idea of having something supple underneath you, that machine that roars and can turn on a dime.

I had no credit cards. I had no checks. I was cash only until I was probably 30 years old.

You make your music, then you try to find whatever audience is out there for it.

I was signed to a record label at the same time as my friend Elliot Murphy, who makes great records to this day.

The different social forces that affected my parents' lives or my friends' lives or I saw around me became essential for me to write about.

On any given night, what allows me to get to that higher ground is the audience.

I was real good at music and real bad at everything else.

When I first started in rock, I had a big guy's audience for my early records. I had a very straight image, particularly through the mid '80s.

I think that, when you're writing your songs, there's always a debate about whether, is that you in the song? Is it not you in the song?

I don't know many artists who are not crazy.

I still like to go to record stores, I like to just wander around and I'll buy whatever catches my attention.

For me, once I count the band in, and I delve deep into my song, I feel a certain sort of integrity and integration that I rarely find in my daily life.

I don't know if I know anyone, with the exception of the early inventors of rock music [who wasn't influenced by something].

I think 1960s small-town America was very Lynchian. Everything was there, but underneath, everything was rumbling.

I held four clean aces. I had youth, almost a decade of hard-core bar band experience, a good group of homegrown musicians who were attuned to my performance style and a story to tell.

You know hearts these days are cheap.

I never felt I had enough personal style to pursue being just a guitarist.

An outgrowth of having a long career is that I have a lot of interesting things around that I get to revisit, and someday get to the place where they become something that I want to do next.

I come from a boardwalk town where almost everything is tinged with a bit of fraud. So am I.

T-Bone Burnett once said that much of rock music is simply someone going wahhh daddy.

Me and crazy Janey were making love in the dirt singing our birthday songs.

Most of these - most people's stage personas are created out of the flotsam and jetsam of their internal geography.

I studied other singers, so I would learn how to phrase, and learn how to breathe. And the main thing was, I learned how to inhabit my song.

I was the only person I'd ever met who had a record contract. None of the E Street Band, as far as I know, had been on an airplane until Columbia sent us to Los Angeles.

I found the key to the universe in the engine of an old parked car.

I want a thousand guitars . . .

I go to put my arm around you and you give me a look like I'm way out of bounds.

I believe the war on poverty is a more American idea than the war on the war on poverty. I believe that most people feel like that. And I believe that it ain't over till it's over.

I know your mama she don't like me, cause I play in a rock and roll band.

You ain't a beauty but, hey, you're all right.

From the town of Lincoln Nebraska with a sawed off .410 on my lap, through the Badlands of Wyoming I killed everything in my path.

When you have three teenagers, it gives a whole new meaning to "homeland security."

Blood moon risin' in a sky of black dust, tell me baby, who do you trust?

To her Cheshire smile, I'll stand on file, she's all I ever wanted. But you let your blue walls get in the way of these facts.

You use to drive me wild, but lately you get your kicks from just knocking me down, down, down.

Hey, little dolly with the blue jeans on, I want to ramrod with you, honey, 'til half past dawn.

I took a month long vacation in the stratosphere, and you know it's very hard to hold your breath.

I got a house full of Rembrandts and priceless art, and all the little girls they wanna tear me apart.

I'm a synthesist. I'm always making music. And I make a lot of different kinds of music all the time. Some of it gets finished and some of it doesn't.

Sometimes, at night you could hear the whole damn city crying.

I met a girl and we ran away, I swore I'd make her happy every day. And how I made her cry, two faces have I.

I'm just tired and bored with myself.

I got Mary pregnant and man that's all she wrote. And for my 19th birthday, I got a union card and a factory coat.

In America everything's about who's number one today.

I'm laughing at you, you're laughing at me.