Harry Hadden-Paton Quotes

I think it's cool to be a rock star; I don't think there are many. There aren't many who speak out and take risks. And I think that's important.

I rebelled by not getting straight A's and not following the path that my elder sister did. She was valedictorian and is very exemplary in her way. I look a lot like her, so I just had to do the opposite. Not that I got bad grades, but I was all about performance and just finding any way that I could to be involved in any kind of production.

There's a hell of a lot of freedom in this rock and roll circus... it's where all the freaks go - it's the environment for me.

Now, in music, it seems more like the popular crowd suppresses anyone who is different.

When we got with George, he didn't care what was happening. He liked how crazy we were looking and dressing. I kinda liked being with George more so at the time, because George let us do what we wanted to do. But I needed both lessons.

All my friends started getting boyfriends, but I didn't want a boyfriend, I wanted a thirteen-colour biro.

Guys want to be cool without appearing to be bothered about trends.

I wanted girls to scream at me. I wanted to be a rock star.

When you are a rock star in front of 20,000 people, you receive instant gratification. A rock star on tour is a king in his domain.

The fact that people are actually shaving their eyebrows is very flattering. But it's crazy that people are singing songs I wrote in my bedroom.

Ice Cube is the piece of me that I give away to the public.

I guess if you can't sing, you better have a style!

I never sang for a Grammy, for money, for fame. That's my whole purpose for singing: for people, for the fans.

I'm not a rock star. Sure I am, to a certain extent because of the situation, but when kids ask me how it feels to be a rock star, I say leave me alone, I'm not a rock star. I'm not in it for the fame, I'm in it because I like to play.

It never mattered to me that people in school didn't think that country music was cool, and they made fun of me for it - though it did matter to me that I was not wearing the clothes that everybody was wearing at that moment. But at some point, I was just like, 'I like wearing sundresses and cowboy boots.'

So much of my career has been about saying things the way people say them, using melodies not that I can sing but that the people can sing.

I started writing stories in sixth grade. But writing wasn't cool, like being good at sports, or being part of the in crowd, or winning fights on the playground.

If I hadn't been a singer, I might have been a photographer or an artist. But it's singing I love. I sing all the time, and I feel really good that I've expressed myself.

Once I started singing, I didn't have to try to be cool. I was just one of the coolest guys around.

In the Seventies and Eighties we all had our fun, and now and then we went really too far. But, ultimately, it required a certain amount of clear thinking, a lot of hard work and good make-up to be accepted as a freak.

When I was 13, I asked for a guitar. And that's how I really started explaining my point of view.

In high school, I had a wonderful teacher who, coincidentally also taught Meryl Streep before me. At the same time I had my own rock band, I played bass and sang. I was one of those kids who really enjoyed being with my friends and doing rather insane, but fun, creative things.

I'm not a big fan of trying to be a sex symbol or any of that stuff because I really like the music to speak for itself.

I think I've been wishing for celebrity for so long that I've got used to being someone who's petitioning the establishment for acceptance... my whole schtick, my whole identity, is so wrapped up in being a petitioner that I don't really know how to react now that petition has been granted.

For me, music and life are all about style.