David Byrne Quotes

I didn't have any agenda or plan when I started writing stuff.

I don't like begging money from producers.

The voting booth joint is a great leveler; the whole neighborhood - rich, poor, old, young, decrepit and spunky - they all turn out in one day.

Suburban houses and tin sheds are often the objects of ridicule.

The Heads were the only band on that scene that had a groove.

My take is that the kind of complexity which says we can always generate complexity from simple interactions following for example rules.

PowerPoint may not be of any use for you in a presentation, but it may liberate you in another way, an artistic way. Who knows.

The arts don't exist in isolation.

Yeah, it's pretty hard not to be completely cynical these days.

Ninety percent of all music is always crap, and when too many people decide they're going to have guitar bands, then ninety percent of them are going to be crap. It's just a given law.

Rich people will travel great distances to look at poor people.

I can't tell one from the other:I find you or you find me?There was a time before we were born If someone asks, this is where I'll be.

Obviously, you go through a lot of emotional turmoil in a divorce.

I'm afraid that reason will triumph and that the world will become a place where anyone who doesn't fit that will become unnecessary

I've noticed a lot of younger artists have less fear of doing different sorts of things, whether it's various types of music, or gallery artists moving between video and sculpture and drawing.

I wave to the double-decker buses from my bike, but the passengers never wave back. Why? Am I not an attraction?

I love getting out of my comfort zone.

I try never to wear my own clothes, I pretend I'm someone else

There are plenty of people who are, I think, completely racist who love hip-hop.

This ain't no party, this ain't no disco, this ain't no fooling around.

I'm no Lance Armstrong, but I do use a bike to get from place to place in Manhattan, a little bit of Brooklyn.

A bike is the world's most used form of transportation

Sometimes I write stuff that strangely predicts what's going to happen in my life.

That's the thing about pictures: they seduce you.

Punk was defined by an attitude rather than a musical style.

It's not always been a happy marriage. I guess I wanted a quick fix.

On a bike, being just slightly above pedestrian and car eye level, one gets a perfect view of the goings-on in one's own town.

I never listen to the radio unless I rent a car.

I'm not suggesting people abandon musical instruments and start playing their cars and apartments, but I do think the reign of music as a commodity made only by professionals might be winding down.

When everything is worth money, then money is worth nothing.

Software constraints are only confining if you use them for what they're intended to be used for.

Having unlimited choices can paralyze you creatively.

The more you know, the more you know you don't know and the more you know that you don't know.

Singing is a trick to get people to listen to music for longer than they would ordinarily.

Most of our lives aren't that exciting, but the drama is still going on in the small details.

I'm afraid that everything will get homogenized and be the same

We're on a road to nowhere, come on inside. Takin' that ride to nowhere, we'll take that ride. I'm feelin' okay this mornin', and you know, we're on the road to paradise, here we go, here we go.

Science's job is to map our ignorance.

Book learning, or intelligence of one sort, doesn't guarantee you intelligence of another sort.You can behave just as stupidly with a good college education.

Always be skeptical about simplicity.

A little touch of chaos and danger makes a city sexy.

Things fall apart, it's scientific.

I've never had writer's block.

When everything is visible and appears to be dumb, that's when the details take on larger meanings.

I'd like to be known for more than being the guy in the big suit.

I always think the everyday is more relevant than anything too grand because we all have to deal with it.

I've noticed that when I am selling a lot of records, certain things become easier. I'm not talking about getting a table in a restaurant.

I’m not all about money, but, like most musicians, I am about survival.

As everything becomes digitized, there's the idea that things that can't be digitized become more valuable.

Interviewer: If I gave you fifty dollars, right now, what would you do with it?David Byrne: I would get something to eat.