Elvis Costello (Declan Patrick MacManus) Quotes

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.

Elvis Costello

• Music
• Bad
• Poetry
• Romantic

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Quotes to Explore

• 'Envy' was a bit of a challenge for me. It was smooth.

  

  Fat Joe
  • Challenge
  • Envy
  • Smooth

• I think mobility is very important, not only to discover opportunities elsewhere but at times, also to appreciate better what your home town has. Allahabad, for instance, has the feel of a small, tightly-knit community where everyone participates.

  

  Vikas Swarup
  • Important
  • Home
  • Small

• Love is not the dying moan of a distant violin - it's the triumphant twang of a bedspring.

  

  S. J. Perelman
  • Love
  • Dying
  • For Her

• I fantasized being a broadcaster.

  

  Larry King
  • Being
  • Broadcaster

• We got orders to strike the Marshall and Gilbert Islands. We had a task force with the Enterprise. We had two or three cruisers and probably eight or 10 destroyers.

  

  Barney Ross
  • Force
  • Three
  • Task

• For every reason it's not possible, there are hundreds of people who have faced the same circumstances and succeeded.

  

  Jack Canfield
  • People
  • Same
  • Circumstances

• In 2009, during my inaugural address, I expressed the importance of unprecedented partnerships. Since then, Utah's government, business, and education leaders in communities statewide have worked together more frequently and with better results than ever before.

  

  Gary Herbert
  • Business
  • Together
  • Education

• I have this first album that sells more than 100,000 copies in its first week, debuts at number two, goes gold, the single goes platinum, we're doing Madison Square Garden.

  

  Halsey
  • Single
  • Doing
  • Gold

• I love the fact that everyone's trying to be good-looking in L.A. - then I turn up and I get work.

  

  Eddie Marsan
  • Good
  • Work
  • Fact

• I started traveling by myself as early as 5 to see my dad. I'd go to Toronto or Los Angeles, depending on what show he was doing, but most often New York, and we would hang out, and he'd take me to museums and Broadway plays. The ones that had the biggest impact on me were the George C. Wolfe productions.

  

  Mahershala Ali
  • Dad
  • Myself
  • New York

• If we were truly in the studio making a record, it would have been more time consuming, and certainly I would have been more involved in the writing process.

  

  Taylor Dayne
  • Time
  • Writing
  • Process

• I think it's fun to get in a room and sweat with people. I'm happy to share my workouts with everyone.

  

  Madonna Breakfast Club
  • People
  • Happy
  • Fun

• The Arab representatives and their followers were not interested in the persecuted millions throughout the world; they were fixed on a political agenda that distracted the world from their own serious shortcomings in the human-rights department.

  

  Jack Schwartz
  • World
  • Political
  • Serious

• You just make sure you don't screw it up. It's going to work as long as you don't mess it up. Hopefully you have plenty of those moments in a big comedy.

  

  Harold Ramis
  • Up
  • Work
  • Long

• People may think I'm crazy, but one of the ways I like to wind down my Friday is to get some of our household chores done, whether it's cleaning or doing a big food shop, so the house is all nice for the weekend.

  

  Victoria Pendleton
  • People
  • Done
  • May

• Spiritual infirmities such as tepidity are caused, not only by chills but also by fevers, that is, by excessive zeal.

  

  Saint Ignatius
  • Spiritual
  • Only
  • Zeal

• I love the produce section at the grocery store.

  

  Kate McKinnon
  • Produce
  • Store
  • Grocery

• At night when I used to sleep, I was thinking all the time that shall I put a knife under my pillow.

  

  Malala Yousafzai
  • Time
  • Thinking
  • Night

• I don't get jealousy, I don't get how people hate each other - I never did.

  

  Nas
  • People
  • Hate
  • Jealousy

• Attention to detail and a perfectionist instinct, far from stimulating action, are character qualities that lead to renunciation. Better to dream than to be.

  

  Fernando Pessoa
  • Character
  • Dream
  • Action

• People don't think music to be a reliable source of income or career, which I will agree, in a way, because Bollywood is a very risky place to be in.

  

  Armaan Malik
  • People
  • Music
  • Career

• Peace is the virtue of civilization. War is its crime.

  

  Victor Hugo
  • War
  • Peace
  • Civilization

• The Indians, I was now speaking of, were not content with the common Enemies that lessen and destroy their Country-men, but invented an infallible Stratagem to purge their Tribe, and reduce their Multitude into far less Numbers.

  

  John Lawson
  • Men
  • Country

• 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.

  

  Elvis Costello
  • Music
  • Bad
  • Poetry