298 Quotes by Elvis Costello

She's filing her nails while they are dragging the lake.

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.

There is something wrong with you if you don't get angry about something.

It's the stupid details that my heart is breaking for.

My dad's father was a White Star Line trumpet player in the '20s. It shaped the way that I think about music. My grandfather was classically trained, military trained. He was an orphan who ended up in the Military School of Music in Kneller Hall.

I've had a lot of different experiences in music over the years.And not everything you do can satisfy everybody's idealised version of you.

You have to face the fact that I have no reputation as a composer; I have my reputation as a songwriter and a performer-and that opportunity came this summer, when I was invited to perform at the Lincoln Centre festival in New York... three nights.

Songs are more powerful than books.

I wanna bite the hand that feeds me. I wanna bite that hand so badly. I want to make them wish they'd never seen me.