David Byrne Quotes

Gratitude is a burden, and every burden is made to be shaken off.

Well, after the divorce, I went home and turned all the lights on!

I'm lighter now in a lot of ways.

I have to throw off the burden and the pressure.

Break the glass, please, and free us from all these damned rules, from needing to find an explanation for everything, from doing only what others approve of.

There's a terrible dark joy when the only person who knows all your secrets is finally dead.

It was an instant weight lifted off my chest - both literally and figuratively.

Feeling bad is not a requirement; it’s something we agree to. Cut it loose!

To be relieved of love, she thought, was to give up a terrible burden.

I'm going to wake up tomorrow and start with not caring how I feel. That's going to feel great.

Punishment renders autonomy of conscience impossible.

Human beings are free except when humanity needs them.

Whatever's there to feel, feel it—the riddance, the relief, the fright and freedom, the fear of forgetting, the dull ache of your own mortality. Get with someone you can trust with tears, with anger, and wonderment and utter silence.

The tyranny of public opinion (and what an opinion!) is as fatuous in the small towns of France as it is in the United States of America.

We all have a tendency to want order in our lives. But order presupposes authority, and authority presupposes, sooner or later, that we'll all need hooves. It's going to happen sooner or later, isn't it? You know it is.

We prate of freedom; we are in deadly fear of life, as much of our own American scene betrays.

As my late mother famously observed, the one thing to be said for growing old is that every year there are a few more things I don’t have to give a rat’s ass about.

I hate the thought of her being forced into a box that doesn't fit her. Of having her wings cut off, her sight blinded, her hearing muted, her voice stilled.

The very opposite of freedom is cliche, and nothing is less free, more inert with convention and hollow brutality, than a row of four-letter words.

You know, you can only cram your beliefs down a young kid's throat for so long before he goes, "you know, the other side seems to be having a lot more fun."

The trouble with this world is that everybody has to compromise and conform.

The worst part of all is that, without forgiveness, bitterness is all that is left

Where can you scream? It's a serious question: where can you go in society and scream?

We have a problem with any labels that people try to hang on us, because all it does is drag you down.

The right belief is like a good cloak, I think. If it fits you well, it keeps you warm and safe. The wrong fit however, can suffocate.