Elton John Quotes
Singer
The great thing about rock and roll is that someone like me can be a star.
We were both very much the same. We were both very impulsive. We both loved life. We both loved shopping. We both had a love of clothes, obviously, because he was the designer that I kind of wore forever and ever.
I've only been interested in the artistic side of life.
And I'm afraid, in this day and age, trust, which I count so, you know, I love loyalty. I love trust.
Music has healing power. It has the ability to take people out of themselves for a few hours.
I never thought of myself as being handsome or good-looking or whatever. I always felt like an outsider.
I'm not everybody's cup of tea. But sometimes criticism can be hurtful. Be respectful. I'm a good piano player, I can sing well, I write good songs. If you don't like it, fair enough. But give me a break.
I've always wanted to smash a guitar over someone's head. You just can't do that with a piano.
I loathe celebrity. I can't stand it.
We live in an age, in an era where there is so much negativity, there is so much violence in the world, there is so much unrest and people are at war, that I wanted to promote the word love and red signifies love.
I do like Britney Spears. I think she's cute. I think she's fun. And I like her records. You know, I'm not a pop snob whatsoever. I think she makes great pop records.
I've got that resilient thing inside me. But I wasn't a happy bunny.
I love places that have an incredible history. I love the Italian way of life. I love the food. I love the people. I love the attitudes of Italians.
The whole point of being in this business and being blessed and being successful is that you're able to do things for your friends or your family, which means that they can have something special in their lives, too.
Well, as I was saying... everyone's so nice to me, usually.
If there is a better singer in England than Craig David, then I am Margaret Thatcher.
When Little Richard used to stand up and play it was just fabulous, and Liberace had the candlesticks and the rings and the gift of the gab. The piano's is the most ungainly rock' n' roll instrument of all time but those two people transcended it, as did Jerry Lee Lewis.
I used to get my money at the end of the week, buy my mum something, or buy a record, and that was it.
I was just genuinely shy. I'd always been a shy kid.
I don't have to compete in the charts. I can just be myself as a musician, a songwriter and play with the musicians that I really love.
I've never been jealous of anybody's success. I've been flummoxed by it because I don't understand it, but I'm not jealous of it.
I think performers are all show-offs anyway, especially musicians. Unless you show off, you're not going to get noticed.
I've got a great collection of photography.
I'm very relaxed. I have a family, I have a partner of 20 years, I have a wonderful life; nothing could be better.
Well, I was making a record, and I had to choose a name, because they said, you know, you can't make a record under the name of Reg Dwight, because it's never going to - you know, it's not attractive enough.
I mean, in some cases with libel laws, you know, they can write things about people who have no course of action, because they can't afford to take legal action against them.
I rarely wear tennis shoes. I'm 5' 8', I hate being short.
Well, I'm a huge fan of Ryan Adams, who's from North Carolina. And he's beginning to break really quite big.
Fame attracts lunatics.
I never really made a full album in Los Angeles before.
I heard Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis, and that was it. I didn't ever want to be anything else. I just started banging away and semi-studied classical music at the Royal Academy of Music but sort of half-heartedly.
People with HIV are still stigmatized. The infection rates are going up. People are dying. The political response is appalling. The sadness of it, the waste.
I'm very generous.
I loathe gardening, but I love gardens, and I have two beautiful gardens. I can not bear gardening, but I love gardens.
The worst thing you can do to a child, and I've seen it happen so many times, is the silver spoon.
And the danger is - and it's happening - is we're seeing an incredibly big rise amongst young gay people, young heterosexual people as far as catching HIV, which is, you know, in an educated country like this or in Britain, it's frightening.
If I was to say what I am, I'd be a Labour man. I like Tony Blair a lot, I think he's a good man. And in America I'd definitely be a Democrat; I'd never be a Republican.
I love every minute of fatherhood, staying up all night, changing nappies, kids crying, I find it really funny and inspiring. It connects you to the world in a new way.
I have a much better relationship with the press than I did, I think because I stood my ground.
But you know, I have a pretty good relationship with the press and the paparazzi. It's just when they step over the line that, you know, enough's enough.
An agent is a person who is sore because an actor gets 90% of what they make.
When your persona begins to take over your music and becomes more important, you enter a dangerous place. Once you have people around you who don't question you, you're in a dangerous place.
I tour as many countries as possible, and I've toured every state in America, plus every province in Canada.
If you write great songs with meaning and emotion, they will last for ever because songs are the key to everything. Songs will outlast the artist and they will go on for ever if they are good.
I grew up at my grandmother's house and she had a beautiful garden. I used to hate mowing the lawn and weeding, which is what you do when you're a kid.
I do like my rock stars to be a little larger than life. I don't mind the earnest ones at all, but I do like a bit of individuality.
I have no one to leave the money to. I'm a single man. I like spending my money.
At heart I've always been a music fan. That part of me has never changed since I was a little kid, sitting in a room watching a record go round, looking at the colour of the labels.
There is nothing wrong with going to bed with someone of your own sex.
And I trusted someone to look after me on the business side of life.
I'm addicted to working. I mean, I have a list of 100 countries I want to play in. I'm basically killing myself by travelling so much, for no reason whatsoever.
As a child, as a teenager, I was kind of not allowed to wear fashionable clothes.
Jesus wanted us to be loving and forgiving.
I'm a very wealthy man.
I've always been dead set against festivals - really suspicious and wary.
There's no pressure for me to go out there and say, I've got to have a top 40 hit because it's not going to happen.
I am the most well-known homosexual in the world.
Simon Cowell and I are great friends, and we wind each other up. Rod Stewart and I do the same thing.
Bands today have to learn their craft by putting the hard work in that we did when we were young performers.
Well, I've had my fair share in Britain of battling the tabloids.
When I say I don't have to write pop songs anymore, there's no way I'm going to get on the radio at 60 years of age unless I'm doing a duet with Gaga or I was on 'All of the Lights,' which was a Kanye West record that managed to get on the radio.
I grew up conservative because my mum was a conservative, and when I finally realized what conservatives were, I changed my mind immediately.
I'm a great lover of children. I never thought that one day I'd actually be a father, but I'm very pleased that I changed my mind. Children are extremely important. They are the future of the world.
I've never had a writer's block, but still I think: 'Is it going to happen this time?' You never know what you're going to get; you just put your fingers on the keys and hope.
I've had an amazing professional life, personal life, but at 64 to have a son who gives us that much love and enjoyment is, wow!
Everything I thought I'd hate about having children - the crying, the screaming - nothing fazes me. I love it all, and it's relaxed me.
And there's no guarantee that if you get HIV and you take these triple therapies, or whatever comes along next, that they're going to be successful for you.
For me, music is so passionate, I have to give it my all every time I go onstage. Onstage, it was always comfortable for me, because that's where I felt at home.
I love the idea of the teachings of Jesus Christ and the beautiful stories about it, which I loved in Sunday school and I collected all the little stickers and put them in my book. But the reality is that organised religion doesn't seem to work. It turns people into hateful lemmings and it's not really compassionate.
The great thing about small children is they're portable, so we take them everywhere, but when it comes to 2015, Zachary's going to school, and I want to be there to drop him off and pick him up. I don't want to just be the father who reads them a bedtime story.
Because, I figured that, because I was a successful man, I was wealthy, I was, you know, seemingly intelligent - even that I am not intelligent enough to ask for help.
I am such a Luddite when it comes to making music. All I can do is write at the piano.
Yeah. I have been with David Furnish for eight years, now.
I have a lot of money stashed away, but I do live my life from day to day.
My mum always used to buy a record every Friday.
Who really needs a new album from me?
I mean, Sting is one of my great buddies and I love him to death.
Once I'd heard 'Modern Times' by Bob Dylan, it really changed the way I wanted to make records.
And I agreed with that, and I couldn't wait to change my name anyway, because I'm not too fond of the name of Reginald. It's a very kind of '50s English name.
And I talked to my doctor, and I must admit, you know, I'm sometimes quite renowned for my outbursts and I was just very frustrated, maybe a little frightened.
I just go into the studio, look at the lyrics for the first time when I put them on the piano, and go. If I haven't got it within 40 minutes, I give up. It's never changed, the thrill has never gone, because I don't know what I'm going to get next.
I'd always lived with people - my family, or had people living with me, because I'd never liked being on my own.
It's just so wonderful to have someone in the house like a child to turn your attention to. It's not about you anymore, it's about this lovely little human being.
As Elton John, my days on pop radio are over, and I know that and I accept it and I'm not unhappy about it.
I could never go onstage in denims.
There's a lot of hate in the world.
The thing about Vegas is, I don't have to fly anywhere, and that really helps. It means I stay in one place for three weeks at a time instead of flying backwards and forwards.
I went to a mixed school and I can't remember being bullied at school, ever. I was quite large, in those days. Usually, if you're going to be a bully, you'll pick on someone who is small. I didn't bully anybody, and I don't remember being bullied.
When people go to rehab and come out, they go through a difficult period, but I never had that.
I do work a lot. I mean, most of my income, I would say, comes from live performances. And then you've got publishing, you've got record royalties.
I'm lucky enough and wealthy enough to be able to buy photographs and buy art that inspires me from day to day. I don't want a Picasso on my wall; it's great art, but it's dead art to me. I'd rather have a photograph by someone I've never heard of that really inspires me.
I am so in the past. I'm such a Luddite when it comes to making music. All I can do is write at the piano.
I am the biggest technophobe of all time.
I hate to say this, but I always listen to the music and the instrumentation first, and then grab on to the lyrics later.
I grew up conservative because my mum was a conservative, and when I finally realized what conservatives were, I changed my mind immediately. As children, we tend to copy our parents.
Jesus wanted us to be loving and forgiving. I don't know what makes people so cruel.
I grew up at my grandmother's house, and she had a beautiful garden. I used to hate mowing the lawn and weeding, which is what you do when you're a kid. I loathe gardening, but I love gardens, and I have two beautiful gardens.
I'm so proud to be on a Kate Bush record; she's always marched to the beat of her own drum.