Tom Verlaine Quotes

The first time I met Patti Smith was in a laundromat. We knew some of the same people, including Richard Hell.

I just don't like people coming up to me and saying something. It immediately makes you become insincere. There is no way you can react to it sincerely.

The song Venus de Milo, the whole subject of it is Love is a drug.

When I think of 'influence', I think of 'influenza', like somebody's picked up a germ.

I never liked mellow sounding guitar.

You can't get so interested in just making sounds. The point of it all is some kind of expression.

Everybody's out trying to be commercial. I'm not trying to be anything, really.

I like thinking of myself as invisible. I find it a very advantageous way to live.

Practice? I never practice. I just write songs and take solos.

I don't see us as a big media gimmick band. We don't have a cultivated appearance or anything like Kiss.

When somebody turned me on to a Coltrane record around seventh grade, I took up saxophone.

Places like Belgium and the south of France, Sweden and Copenhagen are really alive. They really love rock 'n' roll, they really respond.

I've got a quote for you, a good quote to describe Television...In madness there is order.

I grew up taking piano lessons and liking Wagner when I was in second grade.

I'm not even sure who my audience is.

I really don't have that much interest in stardom.

I always thought I was commercial. I always thought I was writing hit singles. These days, whatever's on the radio is considered commercial. People like what's on the radio, whatever it is.

What's really fun is to write under different names.

All the Frank O'Hara types seem to have very little sound stuff going... it's so chatty or something.

The Beat thing happened when I was younger. I used to run away from home, inspired by the Beats, like in '64 and '65.

You know, there is something I'm looking for when I'm writing. But I couldn't tell you what that is.

I wonder what all those Chinese poets sound like in Chinese. I like their distilled quality.

My non-career. My excuse for a career? Honestly, I never think about the word 'career.' I've had managers, the minute they say it to me, they look at me and just roll their eyes.

I don't think Marquee Moon was so good, y'know? Just another record. First records everybody likes a lot.

I don't think anybody thinks about their past much, unless they're in a mental institution.

I told somebody in Europe I was 43. I never tell my true age. It's ridiculous that people ask. The press doesn't deserve anything but lies.

Boogie! I hate boogie, God, I mean, not the Chicago boogie like Willie Dixon or Howlin' Wolf, but all those awful white bands.

Emily Dickinson has great sound and sense.

Style to me is incidental. The British are very adept at creating it for its own sake, but the best style is incidental. John Coltrane had a style but it was totally incidental to what he was.

I'm not a clown but I'm not an academic either.