92 Quotes by Robert Hilburn

As soon as I started working at the 'Los Angeles Times,' people warned me not to get too close to artists because it could make it difficult to review their work, and you can never really tell if the 'friendship' is genuine.

Courtney Love is so famous among journalists for her loquaciousness that the joke is that you don't have to worry about questions when you interview her - just be sure you have lots of tape.

In the role of Ziggy Stardust, Bowie seemed in 1972 like a strange alien creature, not so much coming from another planet as from a future age. His purpose: to warn us about a dangerous society where values were to be turned inside out.

Take any celebrity - all we really know is what they choose to tell us or what they show us in public.

It's important to realize that everybody who went into country music, and most everybody who went into rock and roll in the '50s, they had no more goal than a hit on the jukebox. Johnny Cash, from the very beginning, had a goal that he wanted to make music that lifted people's spirits.

I learned how difficult it is to be an artist. There are always compromises. The record company wants you to do this, your fans want you to do this, your family - you can't concentrate on your work.

When I began to interview people from the '60s, my first question was always, 'What was your favorite record?'

I didn't know if I should tell people that Johnny Cash had an affair with his sister-in-law while his wife was pregnant. How much does the public need to know about a performer?

Johnny Cash was a good man. He tried to live up to his faith. It was just difficult.