Jarvis Cocker Quotes

All musicians start out with ideals but hanging on to them in the face of media scrutiny takes real integrity. Tougher still is to live up to the ideals of your dedicated fans.

Celebrities do look different in real life from our images of them - there is a big gap. And that is what my work is about: the gap between the image and the celebrity themselves.

The thing with me and The Strokes and talking about stuff is I hate reading about it. I wish they just didn't write about me. I mean, I'm putting out a new record, and it's like, 'The Strokes are getting back together!' If they wanted to do that, why don't they just write an article on The Strokes? I don't like being the spokesperson for the band.

The thing I hate the most in any kind of writing is self-righteousness. Where you pretend you don't have the same kinds of flaws your subject has.

It isn't necessary to be an untouchable rock-icon guy surrounded by bodyguards and be ushered in and out and have everyone do everything for you. It isn't necessary to change the way you present your band to the public just because you're successful. That happened a lot in the '80s: there was a school of thought that said people would like you more if you acted like you were the unattainable star.

The public me, the one named Elizabeth Taylor, has become a lot of hokum and fabrication - a bunch of drivel - and I find her slightly revolting.

When Hillary Clinton tried to act holier than thou, it really doesn't work. It really doesn't.

People ask me questions like, "Oh, you look so theatrical in your photographs. Is that what you're like when you walk down the street?" It's like, "Of course not." It's such a silly question - it's like being theatrical is a crime.

You have celebrities who are pushed to the brink of a public meltdown, and so the public thinks that every person in the public eye has dirty secrets that they're keeping, or isn't what they seem, or is masking it and faking sincerity, faking authenticity, faking being surprised at award shows when you win a Grammy.

Pose? I don't pose. What am I? Paris Hilton or something?

People sometimes come up to me, and it's like they just want to capture Passenger. I feel like Pikachu. Sometimes, in the more sort of depressing moments, it feels like it's not about the music, it's just about the photo, and that really worries me.

I think you can overthink dealing with fame. To an extent, you've got to put yourself out there, but I feel like your work should really speak for itself, and I don't feel the need to go and make everyone like me because, to be honest, I'm not looking to be friends with the world. I'd much rather people watch the things that I'm in.

I realised it was very important to show the fans that I'm a normal person.

I understand that, because there are so many musicians, you have to make artists into brands, but I sometimes feel like I have to be some kind of non-human icon in order for people to listen to my music.

For me, Mr. T and Donald Trump are the same sort of phenomenon - they're guys with catchphrases and wacky hair.

Because I'm the only performer who comes out and says I've had plastic surgery, I've become the plastic surgery poster girl, which is hilarious, because everybody has done it and they all deny it. They stand there, like the Bride of Frankenstein, they've all got stitches, and they all say, 'I've done nothing.' I talk about it.

I'm not trying to stay away from being a celebrity, I'm not saying, 'I'm sooo not famous,' I'm trying to continue being a musician in a time when everyone is very celebrity-led.

Well, it hurts my feelings because the person that I read about sometimes in these gossip magazines is not the person who I am. So I don't want, you know, my fans to think that's how I am.

Fetty Wap is just a face. It's just a name and face.

These days there's all too much coverage of pesudo-events about extraordinarily inauthentic people doing inauthentic things.

Fame it's like... When you look through a window, say you pass a little pub, or an inn. You look through the window and you see people talking and carrying on. You,can watch outside the window and see them all being very real with each other. But when you walk into the room, it's over. I don't pay any attention to it.

People know I'm smart. And people know that, whether it's SNL or Jimmy Kimmel, it's a trend to take the piss out of celebrity -- just as much of a trend as wearing a gray hoodie or driving a Prius.

Rappers kinda look stupid sometimes. Most of the time. I'm pretty sure I look stupid too a lot.

Actresses feel immense pressure to keep up. Nobody wants someone who doesn't know how to market themselves.

I believe Michael [Jackson] in a sense is an American martyr. Martyrs are persecuted and Michael was persecuted. Michael was innocent and martyrs are innocent. If you go on YouTube and watch interviews with Michael, you don't see a crack in the facade. There's this purity and this innocence that continued [throughout his life].