Michael Stipe Quotes

Sometimes I'm confused by what I think is really obvious. But what I think is really obvious obviously isn't obvious.

I've always felt that sexuality is a really slippery thing. In this day and age, it tends to get categorized and labeled, and I think labels are for food. Canned food.

Super casual music listeners. That's most of the people in the world. And you have to understand, that's why Top 40 radio exists. It's not there for people who seek out music and who love music.

A wise man once said, 'The skill in attending a party is knowing when it's time to leave.'

Love, love will be my strongest weapon

The only thing to fear is fearlessness.

Sometimes before we make a record I go back and listen to a few. It's equally humbling and uplifting.

Never eat broccoli when there are cameras around.

Be yourself. Follow your heart. I know it sounds obvious, but it's the best advice at anyone ever. Take advice from other people, but take from it what feels right for you.

My feeling is that labels are for canned food... I am what I am - and I know what I am.

Links have become the suburbs of the real world.

Anybody that walks can sing.

By nature I will find hope in everything. Even if it's the most incredibly hopeless situation or circumstance. That's just me... I'll never be able to see things any other way.

I'm tired of being this solemn poet of the masses, the enigma shrouded in a mystery.

I remember traffic jams Motor boys and girls with tans Nearly was and almost rans I remember this, this ... At the edge of the continent

The whole punk ethic was do-it-yourself, and I've always been very literal, especially as a kid. When they said that anybody can do this, I was like, 'OK, that's me.'

On planes I always cry. Something about altitude, the lack of oxygen and the bad movies. I cried over a St. Bernard movie once on a plane. That was really embarrassing.

I went through this difficult time [in the 1984] when we were making our third record where I kind of lost my mind. That's when the bulimia kicked in. And that's when I got really freaky.

There was never a golden era of American radio as far as I can tell.

We toured that record for a year, which turned out to be the culmination of ten years of being constantly on the road. We were sick to death of touring.

And I don't expect anyone can bring about a revolution in the way that Bob Dylan did - and really didn't - in the 1960s.

When we first started, we were a band from Athens and that was so off the map.

My iPod that was programmed by Peter Buck. It has 7,000 songs hand-picked for me by him.

I am not an autobiographical writer. I'll take little elements here and there from things that I've actually experienced-counting eyelashes on a sleeping beauty, for example.

If I'm tired of me, I'm sure the public is as well.

For every great thing we did, there is a very public moment of falling on our faces. But everything that came through us as a band was a distinct vision of R.E.M.

Peter was sick of being a pop star, the guitar god, and so he decided to teach himself other instruments. Among the instruments that he picked up was the mandolin.

If you disagree with me, fine! Because that's the great thing about America, we can disagree!

They spoke truth and a lot of people listened.... that voice, Kurt we miss you.

You don't need to be talented. You don't even have to play the guitar to be a guitar player in a punk-rock band. So I, in a very naïve and teenage way, said, "That's it. I'm going to be in a band."

I really wanted to be on Six Feet Under as a corpse. That would be hysterical.

We don't get groupies.We get teenagers who want to read us their poetry.

The song "Sing for the Submarine" presents my dream world, which is way different from my waking world. It's set in the future and it's post-apocalyptic.

I think my apocalyptic feelings went deeper than [heavily influenced by Reagan and AIDS]. I'm really at peace with how afraid I am.

The whole point of the punk-rock thing was that "We're not special. We just have a voice."

I was born in Georgia. That's where my grandparents-and all my people-are from. But my family traveled a great deal because my dad was in the army as a helicopter pilot.

Our generation was supposed to be about trying to deal with nuclear concerns and environmental disasters.

The punk-rock ethos was "Do it yourself. Anyone can do this. We're not sent from the heavens."

Anything you do as a group is fraught with compromise... But everyone 's got to do that, right? It's part of being a good parent, or a good boyfriend, whatever.

I'm just not that fascinating a person to have had all those lives that I've written about.

To be called an elder statesman is so unbelievably insulting. Brad Pitt is exactly three years younger than me.

Everybody hurts sometimes Everybody cries

They always want me to play myself and that's a big snooze.

We're kind of an international phenomenon.

I'm not homosexual, I'm not hetrosexual, I'm just sexual.

I'm afraid of everything. I'm not a naturally courageous person.

I'm kind of quoting Thurston [Moore] and Kim [Gordon] in saying that about not being great with addicts, because they are the ones who said it to me.

The world of WONDERLAND is authentic, vibrant, and genuine. Stacey D’Erasmo explores the delight and terror of second chances. A great read!

I went through a period where I was really tired of seeing and reading about myself.

I was vulnerable every day. Every night that I stepped on stage I was laying myself open.