Quote

Songs are more powerful than books.

Elvis Costello

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Elvis Costello
Age: 69
Born: 1955
Born: August 25
Composer
Guitarist
Record Producer
Singer-Songwriter
London
England
Declan Patrick MacManus
Declan Patrick Aloysius MacManus
Declan MacManus
Songs
Books
Powerful
Song
Music
Book

More quotes by Elvis Costello

Image
I wish you luck with a capital F.
Elvis Costello
Image
I've never had any real concern about posterity. I hope some people will be sorry when I'm not here, but I'm not playing for that.
Elvis Costello
Image
It's what I do. I don't deserve any awards for this, it's just music. It's just writing songs. You sit down, you write a song, you record it. You tour and play the songs live, dress them up a bit differently, or dress them down.
Elvis Costello
Image
And over the last ten years, after my work with the Brodsky Quartet, I had the opportunity to write arrangements for chamber group, chamber orchestra, jazz orchestra, symphony orchestra even.
Elvis Costello
Image
As I walk through This wicked world Searchin' for light in the darkness of insanity, I ask myself Is all hope lost? Is there only pain and hatred, and misery? And each time I feel like this inside, There's one thing I wanna know: What's so funny 'bout Peace, Love, & Understanding?
Elvis Costello
Image
It's a dangerous game that comedy plays. Sometimes it tells you the truth sometimes it delays it.
Elvis Costello
Image
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.
Elvis Costello
Image
The radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools tryin' to anesthetize the way that you feel.
Elvis Costello
Image
Happiness isn't a fortune in a cookie. It's deeper, wider, funnier, and more transporting than that.
Elvis Costello
Image
Obviously I got known for some other songs early on, and some of those were rock'n'roll songs. Some of them were melodic pop songs. And I've done lots of different things, as you know, but every so often I get drawn back.
Elvis Costello
Image
When you work with new people, I think that it throws all of the matters into relief, because you have to explain yourself every time. It's like crossing a new border. They want to see your documents.
Elvis Costello
Image
You must hold on to the sort of finger-painting aspect of music. That's something I learned, particularly from listening to Neil Young. Tom Waits is another one, because Tom's music is incredibly sophisticated and beautifully arranged, but he's using a toolbox that's unlike anybody else's.
Elvis Costello
Image
It's what's on the record not what labels on it. You know, that's like getting a box of cornflakes and eating the cardboard.
Elvis Costello
Image
I find it to be the ultimate backhanded compliment when you are compared against yourself.
Elvis Costello
Image
I could promise that I'll always be true to you, but we may not live to be so old.
Elvis Costello
Image
Don't tell me you don't know what love is When you're old enough to know better.
Elvis Costello
Image
Music is more like water than a rhinoceros. It doesn't charge madly down one path. It runs away in every direction.
Elvis Costello
Image
Life for me is about movement.
Elvis Costello
Image
Smokey Robinson writes the heartfelt songs, whereas it was my job to write the songs about weakness and failure in love.
Elvis Costello
Image
I believe that music is connected by human passions and curiosities rather than by marketing strategies.
Elvis Costello