Michael Stipe Quotes

Quotes about:

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

  Michael Stipe

  Confused, Reality, Thinking

  57 Copy quote

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

  Michael Stipe

  Wise, Party, Men

  "Mike Mills on why R.E.M. are calling it quits" by David Fricke, www.cnn.com. September 26, 2011.

  26 Copy quote

• 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.

  Michael Stipe

  Being Yourself, Heart, People

  Source: thequietus.com

  15 Copy quote

• I've never written a song that's hopeless. I'm not a hopeless person. I'm crazily optimistic. I crazily see the good in people. I crazily see the way out of a terrible situation. I crazily try to be the diplomat. If there are two warring factions in my life, I want them to agree to disagree at the very least.

  Michael Stipe

  Song, Optimistic, Two

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  20 Copy quote

• 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.

  Michael Stipe

  People, World, Radio

  29 Copy quote

• The only thing to fear is fearlessness.

  Michael Stipe

  Fear, Fearlessness

  18 Copy quote

• There tend to be two different drives that lead young people toward music. One is that music provides an escape; it takes you away from the unhappiness or torture of where you are and makes you feel less alienated-you believe there is a place you fit in somewhere else. The other is a sort of transcendent, spiritual feeling in the purity of music.

  Michael Stipe

  Spiritual, Believe, Two

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  16 Copy quote

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

  Michael Stipe

  Feelings, Labels, I Am What I Am

  14 Copy quote

• Love, love will be my strongest weapon

  Michael Stipe

  Love, Weapons, Strongest

  22 Copy quote

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

  Michael Stipe

  Tired, I'm Tired, Wells

  8 Copy quote

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

  Michael Stipe

  Rocks, Voice, Special

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  5 Copy quote

• Anybody that walks can sing.

  Michael Stipe

  Walks

  14 Copy quote

• When I get really hammered I take my clothes off. That's a sure sign. It's been a long time since the last time I did that. Probably a year.

  Michael Stipe

  Years, Clothes, Long

  4 Copy quote

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

  Michael Stipe

  Tired, Mystery, Poet

  12 Copy quote

• 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.

  Michael Stipe

  Hope, Able, Way

  13 Copy quote

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

  Michael Stipe

  Rocks, Ethos, Heaven

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• At the [teenage] time, I did have an inkling of my sexuality. And I had an inkling that I was different from other people in ways beyond my sexuality. But I didn't get into music because I thought, Oh, these people will understand me.

  Michael Stipe

  Teenage, People, Different

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• When I write, I tend toward melancholy, and the few times that I've tried pure joy in music, it doesn't really work that well. The joy can be through catharsis. I think that's what I do well, and observation.

  Michael Stipe

  Writing, Thinking, Joy

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  9 Copy quote

• I was doing that [a collaboration with Kurt Cobain] to try to save his life. The collaboration was me calling up as an excuse to reach out to this guy. He was in a really bad place.

  Michael Stipe

  Guy, Trying, Collaboration

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• Links have become the suburbs of the real world.

  Michael Stipe

  Real, World, Links

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  14 Copy quote

• I simply constructed a project to try to snap Kurt [Cobain] out of a frame of mind. I sent him a plane ticket and a driver, and he tacked the plane ticket to the wall in the bedroom and the driver sat outside the house for 10 hours. Kurt wouldn't come out and wouldn't answer the phone.

  Michael Stipe

  Wall, Phones, House

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• Once I reached my 40s, I thought to myself that if I'm going to play live now, I need to really mean this. I can't go out and be a little bit, for one moment slovenly in my choices as a performer. I mean, these people have paid a lot of money to be here, they've been through the nightmare of getting here, starving themselves waiting for us to get on stage, so I'm going to give them what they came here for.

  Michael Stipe

  Mean, People, Giving

  Source: thequietus.com

  9 Copy quote

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

  Michael Stipe

  America, Fine, Great Things

  7 Copy quote

• There is always something of the writer in the work but I don't think Melville had to be swallowed by a whale to write a great novel. If I had lived the lives of all the characters of the songs I've written, that would truly be an extraordinary story.

  Michael Stipe

  Song, Writing, Character

  2001 In the Daily Telegraph, 20 Oct.

  11 Copy quote

• I was vegetarian, trying to eat from fast-food restaurants without meat. I didn't know how to eat properly and I was starving. I was adrenalized to the eyeballs from performing. I was afraid that I was sick with AIDS. We were playing five shows a week. I even went through a period of abstinence where I didn't drink and stopped having sex. Which is crazy. Maybe I'm answering too many questions at once here, but this is where my mind was at the age of 25.

  Michael Stipe

  Sex, Crazy, Sick

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  13 Copy quote

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