Elvis Costello Quotes

People tend to repeat the same quotes at me that I said when I was 23. And of course, you say things then, and sometimes they're ill-advised.

The wages of sin are an expensive infection.

There's no money back guarantee on future happiness.

You're drinking vintage Elvis Presley wine.

But there are things in Il Sogno that the methods of The Delivery Man could never achieve.

I know that when I make a record like The Delivery Man as a contrast to even Il Sogno, this is going to reach a wider audience, because it communicates in that very direct way.

There's no such thing as an original sin.

When in doubt, play track 4 - it is usually the one you want.

Was it a millionaire who said, "Imagine no possessions"?

You can't live in the past, and I don't. I'm not nostalgic about my own work, at all.

I could promise that I'll always be true to you, but we may not live to be so old.

I'm goin' to take a little trip, down paradise's endless shores. They say that travel broadens the mind, till you can't get your head out of doors.

No use wishing now for any other sin.

Smokey Robinson writes the heartfelt songs, whereas it was my job to write the songs about weakness and failure in love.

We're all just animals. That's all we are, and everything else is just an elaborate justification of our instincts. That's where music comes from. And romantic poetry. And bad novels.

Happiness isn't a fortune in a cookie. It's deeper, wider, funnier, and more transporting than that.

There are a lot of things that you can like at a distance without spending a huge amount of time pondering. It's not so complicated.

The truth can't hurt you, it's just like the dark. It scares you witless, but in time you see things clear and stark.

I knew I was in trouble, but I thought I was in hell.

Sleeping with forgiveness in your heart for me.

I became an altar boy because of the solemn face, but I got thrown out at fourteen for laughing. Because the priest used to mumble everything except the church plate takings.

Those days she was just a beautiful girl, now she's framed and hung up.

My dad had a steady job with a really major dance band from '54 till '68, and then quit because he wanted to play different music. He wanted to sing about peace. He believed in these things.

It's not crazy to want to have certain songs be developed harmonically and still want to make noise with the guitar. And you can have both.

Living a very long time would be a very scary thing.

Certain songs have been written years apart, but they have a natural continuity to my mind.

People speak with enormous pomposity and arrogance about music.

My family calls me Declan. But most people call me E.C. I think it comes from my dad. It's an Irish convention. You usually call the first child by the initials.

The cost of living in sin would make a poor man out of Paul Getty.

Funny, now I can see, how looks can be deceiving.

When they finally put you in the ground, I'll stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down.

There are a few things that I regret, but nothing that I need to forget.

For all the courage that we never had, I'm just about glad.

The long arm of the law slides up the outskirts of town.

There's so many people to see. So many people to check up on and add to your collection.

What do we care, if the world is a joke? We'll give it a big kiss, we'll give it a poke. Death wears a big hat cause he's a big bloke.

In the tiny torn up pieces of his mind he's irresistible too.

Elvis Presley and Puccini shall return.

I woke up and one of us was crying.

The way you look I understand how you were not impressed, but I heard you let that little friend of mine take off your party dress.

The Internet is overrated. It's much smaller an innovation than people think it is. I don't think it's changed the way anybody makes music.

I've always felt writing a song was a bit like going on location. That's true in an almost literal sense. Where you are seeps in somehow.

Sometimes I almost feel just like a human being.

I've had an unusual life. A life far removed from most people's experience.

I'm not going to get too sentimental, like those other sticker valentines, 'cause I don't know if you are loving some body. I only know it isn't mine.

There was not a lot of rock n roll in the house. Our parents didnt think it was very groovy, and I tend to agree with them. If you grew up with Charlie Parker, Bill Haley wasnt very hip.

It's a petty thing, but I wouldn't join the Scouts when I was a kid, 'cause you had to swear allegiance to the queen. I'm just not a royalist. I think it's idiotic, a hereditary principle.

I'm a man with a mission in two or three editions And I'm giving you a longing look Everyday, everyday, everyday I write the book.

Don't tell me you don't know what love is When you're old enough to know better.

Theres so many fish in the sea That only rise up in the sweat and smoke like mercury