Kurt Elling Quotes

Of all the labels and tags and epithets people have forced upon me, there's one I don't dislike. I get called the 'enfant terrible.' In every article, it's always there. So I have to give that a meaning.

I'm the black sheep: I got into telly.

Without putting words in anybody's mouth, I think that Roddy has a reputation for being a rebel. I don't think that's a big secret.

I think I'm not really into the handsome, chivalrous knight; I like the bad boys.

I realized I'm not the kind of person who wants to go with the flow and fit in. I'm an agitator, I'm opinionated, I'm a libertine and leader.

I think guys who are rebels and make their own rules are appealing.

I'm not the kind of guy a girl would take home to her mother. She'd kick the girl out and probably call the cops on me.

I'm a sworn enemy of convention. I despise the conventional in anything, even the arts.

I like people who don't accept boundaries. Like Florence Nightingale. And Napoleon or Louis XIV, though I'm not sure how much I'd have liked to meet them. I admire people who aren't circumscribed by circumstance.

People in general are used to seeing me as the naughty girl because that's what they've always cast me as.

I'm not trying to be some kind of underground renegade.

Anarchists are a race of highly intelligent and imaginative children.

Real change, the kind we have not seen in decades, is only going to come from outside the system. And it's only going to come from a man who's spent his entire life doing what others said could not be done. My father is a fighter.

I always go for the underdog or the rogue or the rebel.

My grandmother is the black-sheep rebel of the family.

I've always been a bit of a rebel.

I'm very different from other politicians.

Everybody in the industry thinks I'm the crazy person.

It’s actually pretty easy to be contrarian. It’s hard to be contrarian and right.

Hopefully people are upset for the reason I want them to be upset. Even when I was doing open mics, I've always had people upset. I've never been the consummate crowd-pleaser.

If you have ever been called defiant, incorrigible, forward, cunning, insurgent, unruly, rebellious, you're on the right track.

I get slightly irritated by people who say they're natural rebels because it just means that they're going to be against whatever anybody does, which is almost like saying you might as well leave it as it is.

Like most of the others, I was a seeker, a mover, a malcontent, and at times a stupid hell-raiser.

Christ...an anarchist who succeeded. That's all.

I've always been my own person. I don't do what people want me to do. Like, if you want me to do that, I'm going to do the complete opposite.