Costello Quotes

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture - it's really a stupid thing to want to do.

Does that mean it's not no? Is that another yes? Now I'm confused. "No?" I ask "No" he says in Eridian. "So, 'yes'?" "No, yes." "Yes?" "No. No." "Yes, yes?" "No!" he balls a fist at me, clearly frustrated. Enough of this interspecies Abbott and Costello routine.

Nothing happened. Nothing continued to happen. More Nothing. The Return of Nothing. Son of Nothing. Nothing Rides Again. Nothing and Abbot and Costello meet the Wolfman...

This whole conversation was turning into a twisted version of Abbot & Costello's Who's on First.

She laughs and looks out the window and I think for a minute that she's going to start to cry. I'm standing by the door and I look over at the Elvis Costello poster, at his eyes, watching her, watching us, and I try to get her away from it, so I tell her to come over here, sit down, and she thinks I want to hug her or something and she comes over to me and puts her arms around my back and says something like 'I think we've all lost some sort of feeling.

Was it a millionaire who said, "Imagine no possessions"?

I used to be disgusted. Now, I'm just amused...

No, Paul, I couldn't care less if you tell me made-up stories. Our lies reveal as much about us as our truths.' (Said to Paul by Elizabeth Costello, the interloping novelist-angel-inner voice).

It's the damage that we do and never know. It's the words that we don't say that scare me so.

Oh, I know that she's disgusted, cause she's feeling so abused. She gets tired of the lust, but it's so hard to refuse.

The battle with the bottle is nothing so novel.

There's no such thing as an original sin.

That was the best ice-cream soda I ever tasted. (Last words.)

What's so funny about peace, love and understanding

Good manners and bad breath will get you nowhere.

I probably would have made music but listening to Elvis Costello took my life in a completely different direction.

If I am frightened then I can hide it If I am crying, I'll call it laughter If I am haunted, I'll call it my imaginary friend If I am bleeding I'll call it wine But if you leave me then I am broken And if I'm broken then only death remains

I wish you luck with a capital "F".

Can a mere song change a people's minds? I doubt that it is so. But a song can infiltrate your heart and the heart may change your mind.

I'm not even sure what I want, but that's not the point - it's that I want it now.

But it's easier to say 'I love you', than 'Yours, sincerely' I suppose.

He's got a mind like a sewer and a heart like a fridge.

Who put these fingerprints on my imagination?

Other kids are brought up nice and sent to Harvard and yale.Me?I was brought up like a mushroom.

I've come to learn that determination only gets you so far in life when you're completely devoid of ability.

Oh, I said 'I'm so happy, I could die.' She said 'Drop dead,' then left with another guy.

Don't start me talking I could talk all night My mind goes sleepwalking While I'm putting the world to right.

There is no position outside of reason where you can stand and lecture about reason and pass judgment on reason.

The truth can’t hurt you, it’s just like the dark. It scares you witless but with time you see things clear and stark

So don't try to touch my heart, it's darker than you think And don't try to read my mind because it's full of disappearing ink

There are some things you can't cover up with lipstick and powder.

I used to be disgusted; now I try to be amused.

There's a girl in this dress, there's always a girl in distress.

It can be hard at times, but you must trust God. You shouldn't take things into your own hands. He always knows best.

My mum always said you get more fun at a Glasgow stabbing than an Edinburgh wedding.

All is allegory... Each creature is key to all other creatures.

Death wears a big hat.

I took my better nature out, drowned it in a babbling stream/took the blossom of my youth and blew it all to smithereens.

You think you're alone until you realize you're in it. Now fear is here to stay, love is here for a visit.

She's no angel. He's no saint.

Sometimes I wish that I could stop you from talking, when I hear the silly things that you say.

I went ahead and read all of George Bernard Shaw’s plays for my own pleasure, because I liked the cut of his beard.

It's a dangerous game that comedy plays. Sometimes it tells you the truth; sometimes it delays it.

Was it a millionaire who said "imagine no possessions?" A poor little schoolboy who said "we don't need no lessons?

Dear Hewitt Costello, Equerry, were daylighted with our outing and are looking backwards to our unearly summers

Nothing happened. Nothing continued to happen. More Nothing. The Return of Nothing. Son of Nothing. Nothing Rides Again. Nothing and Abbott and Costello meet the Wolfman….

She is no longer sure that people are always improved by what they read. Furthermore, she is not sure that writers who venture into the darker territories of the soul always return unscathed.

During the Cold War of the 1950s, American spies were issued eyeglasses with thick, clunky frames. If captured, they were trained to casually chew the curved earpieces, where fatal doses of cyanide were cast inside the plastic. It's these same horn-rimmed suicide glasses, the wrangler says, that inspired the look of Buddy Holly and Elvis Costello. All those young hipsters wearing death on their nose.

I hear they're givin' you a bad reputation just because you've never been denied. You try to say you've done it all before, baby, you know that you just get tired. Yet everybody loves you so much, girl, I just don't know how you stand the strain. Oh, I, I'm the one who's here tonight, and I don't wanna do it all in vain.

Oh, well, that's not bad, I suppose. I mean, I'd prefer devastatingly sophisticated - but almost endearing is more than I could have hoped for under the circumstances.

Books passed through her fingers at the speed of night.

Sometimes I wonder if we're livin' in the same land. Why do you wanna be my friend when I feel like a juggler running out of hands?

I was watching while you're dancing away, our love got fractured in the echo and sway. How come everybody wants to be your friend? You know that it still hurts me just to say it.

I don't wanna be a lover, I just wanna be your victim.

But if I’ve done something wrong there’s no “ifs” and “buts” Cause I love you just as much as I hate your guts

Your skin isn't paper, don't cut it. Do what I did, find something you love, and let that make you bleed

Oh, I used to be disgusted, but now I try to be amused.

I believe that music is connected by human passions and curiosities rather than by marketing strategies.

A lot of pop music has come out of people failing to copy their model and accidentally creating something new. The closer you get to your ideal, the less original you sound.

No consciousness that we would recognize as consciousness. Not awareness, as far as we can make out, of a self with a history. What I mind is what tends to come next. They have no consciousness therefore. Therefore what? Therefore we are free to use them for our own ends Therefore we are free to kill them? Why? What is so special about the form of consciousness that we recognize that makes killing a bearer of it a crime while killing an animal goes unpunished?

She took a right, and then another right. Shouldn't the long corridor leading to the stairs be just ahead? Where had she made a wrong turn?

You start out imitating your heroes, and the way you fuck up becomes your style.

Don't get smart or sarcastic He snaps back just like elastic Spare us the theatrics and the verbal gymnastics We break wise guys just like matchsticks

Life is so strange I don't know why But somebody, somebody has to cry.

No use wishing now for any other sin.

It's a breath you took too late. It's a death that's worse than fate.

...we can pretend that the book in question is not Mr. West’s but mine, made mine by the madness of my reading.

If your born square you don't die round!

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.

Can a mere song change people’s minds? I doubt that it is so, but a song can infiltrate your heart and the heart may change your mind.

Smoke and Cigar Aficionado. It was a personal touch, a nod to bygone days, and Keith felt right at home here. A creature of habit, he’d been coming into Rudy’s every weekday

I didn’t know anything then about odd-metered bars of music, but as Burt told me years later, you don’t count those beats, you just feel them and the tension that they create.

The radio is in the hands of such a lot of fools tryin' to anesthetize the way that you feel.

Akşam vakti, pencere hafif aralık.

Costello must have been the guiding genius behind the 1929 Atlantic City gathering when Al Capone came to confer with the bootleggers of the East Coast.

No pasó nada. Siguió pasando nada. Más nada. El Regreso de Nada. Hijo de Nada. Nada cabalga de nuevo. Nada, Abbott y Costello y el Hombre Lobo…

So you take her to the pictures, trying to become a fixture. Inch by inch trying to reach her, all the way through the second feature. Worrying about your physical fitness, tell me how you got this sickness?

It’s that I no longer know where I am. I seem to move around perfectly easily among people, to have perfectly normal relations with them. Is it possible, I ask myself, that all of them are participants in a crime of stupefying proportions? Am I fantasizing it all? I must be mad! Yet every day I see the evidences. The very people I suspect produce the evidence, exhibit it, offer it to me. Corpses. Fragments of corpses that they have bought for money. It is as if I were to visit friends, and to make some polite remark about the lamp in their living room, and they were to say, “Yes, it’s nice, isn’t it? Polish-Jewish skin it’s made of, we find that’s best, the skins of young Polish-Jewish virgins.” And then I go to the bathroom and the soap wrapper says, “Treblinka – 100% human stereate.” Am I dreaming, I say to myself? What kind of house is this? Yet I’m not dreaming. I look into your eyes, into Norma’s, into the children’s, and I see only kindness, human kindness. Calm down, I tell myself, you are making a mountain out of a molehill. This is life. Everyone else comes to terms with it, why can't you? Why can't you?

He's wearing my favourite shirt – otherwise known as The Sexiest Shirt Known to Man, an item of clothing that emphasises every contour of his torso. When he smiles tonight, his whole face is luminous – quite an achievement, given it's so dark I nearly asked if they had the cocktail menu in Braille.

Rachel came carefully downstairs one morning, in a dressing gown that wasn't quite clean, and stood at the brink of the living room as though preparing to make an announcement. She looked around at each member of the double household - at Evan, who was soberly opening the morning paper, at Phil, who'd been home from Costello's for hours but hadn't felt like sleeping yet, and at her mother, who was setting the table for breakfast - and then she came out with it. "I love everybody," she said, stepping into the room with an uncertain smile. And her declaration might have had the generally soothing effect she'd intended if her mother hadn't picked it up and exploited it for all the sentimental weight it would bear. "Oh Rachel," she cried, "What a sweet, lovely thing to say!" and she turned to address Evan and Phil as if both of them might be too crass or numbskulled to appreciate it by themselves. "Isn't that a wonderful thing for this girl to say, on a perfectly ordinary Friday morning? Rachel, I think you've put us all to shame for our petty bickering and our selfish little silences, and it's something I'll never forget. You really do have a marvelous wife, Evan, and I have a marvelous daughter. Oh, and Rachel, you can be sure that everybody in this house loves you, too, and we're all tremendously glad to have you feeling so well." Rachel's embarrassment was now so intense that it seemed almost to prevent her from taking her place at the table; she tried two quick, apologetic looks at her husband and her brother, but they both missed the message in her eyes. And Gloria wasn't yet quite finished. "I honestly believe that was a moment we'll remember all our lives," she said. "Little Rachel coming downstairs - or little big Rachel, rather - and saying 'I love everybody.' You know what I wish though Evan? I only wish your father could've been here this morning to share it with us." But by then even Gloria seemed to sense that the thing had been carried far enough. As soon as she'd stopped talking the four of them took their breakfast in a hunched and businesslike silence, until Phil mumbled "Excuse me" and shoved back his chair. "Where do you think you're going, young man?" Gloria inquired. "I don't think you'd better go anywhere until you finish up all of that egg.

What have I done, Obie?" Obie flung his hand in the air, the gesture encompassing all the rotten things that had occur under Archie's command, at Archie's direction. The ruined kids, the capsized hopes. Renault last fall and poor Tubs Casper and all the others including even the faculty. Like Brother Eugene. "You know what you've done, Archie. I don't need to draw up a list-" "You blame me for everything, right, Obie? You and Carter and all the others. Archie Costello, the bad guy. The villain. Archie, the bastard. Trinity would be such a beautiful place without Archie Costello. Right, Obie? But it's not me, Obie, it's not me...." "Not you?" Obie cried, fury gathering in his throat, his chest, his guts. "What the hell do you mean, not you? This could have been a beautiful place to be, Archie. A beautiful time for all of us. Christ, who else, if not you?" "Do you really want to know who?" "Okay, who then?" Impatient with his crap, the old Archie crap. "It's you, Obie. You and Carter and Bunting and Leon and everybody. But especially you, Obie. Nobody forced you to do anything, buddy. Nobody made you join the Vigils. Nobody twisted your arm to make you secretary of the Vigils. Nobody pain you to keep a notebook with all that crap about the students, all their weaknesses, soft points. The notebook made your job easier, didn't it, Obie? And what was your job? Finding the victims. You found them, Obie. You found Renault and Tubs Casper and Gendreau-the first one, remember, when we were sophomores?-how you loved it all, didn't you Obie?" Archie flicked a finger against the metal of the car, and the ping was like a verbal exclamation mark. "Know what, Obie? You could have said no anytime, anytime at all. But you didn't...." Archie's voice was filled with contempt, and he pronounced Obie's name as if it were something to be flushed down a toilet. "Oh, I'm an easy scapegoat, Obie. For you and everybody else at Trinity. Always have been. But you had free choice, buddy. Just like Brother Andrew always says in Religion. Free choice, Obie, and you did the choosing....

It’s not the speaking that scares me – it’s how I might see you seeing me.

the trick is to keep breathing, no matter what.

It is better to live one day as a lion than a hundred years as a sheep.

Even after the tears are dry, the hope endures. And at the end of the day, people will believe in anything, if there’s a need to.

It will do you no good to be wishing for boiled spuds, once you’ve mashed them. Just eat them the way they are, or else starve on your wishes.

Trying to be so bad is bad enough Don't make me laugh by talking tough Don't put your heart out on your sleeve When your remarks are off the cuff

He was thirteen that year, the age when children splinter off and abandon the old loves.

I could say it was the nights when I was lonely and you were the only one who'd talk. I could tell you that I like your sensitivity, when you know it's the way that you walk.

Cook was then very handsome in a fey English way and dressed in floor-length, striped djellaba. In the role of the dead-eyed Spiggott, he intoned lines like “You fill me with inertia,” while appearing utterly indifferent to the beauties who danced in attendance. It was a scene that might have provided the basic blueprint for what would later become the Pet Shop Boys’ career.

Elvis Costello and the Attractions were a better band than any of their contemporaries. Light years better. Elvis himself was a unique figure. Horn-rimmed glasses, quirky, pigeon-toed and intense. The only singer-guitarist in the band. You couldn’t say that he didn’t remind you of Buddy Holly. The Buddy stereotype. At least on the surface. Elvis had Harold Lloyd in his DNA as well.

But you know, the longer you listen to this abortion debate, the more you hear this phrase “sanctity of life”. You’ve heard that. Sanctity of life. You believe in it? Personally, I think it’s a bunch of shit. Well, I mean, life is sacred? Who said so? God? Hey, if you read history, you realize that God is one of the leading causes of death. Has been for thousands of years. Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Christians all taking turns killing each other ‘cause God told them it was a good idea. The sword of God, the blood of the land, vengeance is mine. Millions of dead motherfuckers. Millions of dead motherfuckers all because they gave the wrong answer to the God question. “You believe in God?” “No.” Boom. Dead. “You believe in God?” “Yes.” “You believe in my God? “No.” Boom. Dead. “My God has a bigger dick than your God!” Thousands of years. Thousands of years, and all the best wars, too. The bloodiest, most brutal wars fought, all based on religious hatred. Which is fine with me. Hey, any time a bunch of holy people want to kill each other I’m a happy guy. But don’t be giving me all this shit about the sanctity of life. I mean, even if there were such a thing, I don’t think it’s something you can blame on God. No, you know where the sanctity of life came from? We made it up. You know why? ‘Cause we’re alive. Self-interest. Living people have a strong interest in promoting the idea that somehow life is sacred. You don’t see Abbott and Costello running around, talking about this shit, do you? We’re not hearing a whole lot from Mussolini on the subject. What’s the latest from JFK? Not a goddamn thing. ‘Cause JFK, Mussolini and Abbott and Costello are fucking dead. They’re fucking dead. And dead people give less than a shit about the sanctity of life. Only living people care about it so the whole thing grows out of a completely biased point of view. It’s a self serving, man-made bullshit story. It’s one of these things we tell ourselves so we’ll feel noble. Life is sacred. Makes you feel noble. Well let me ask you this: if everything that ever lived is dead, and everything alive is gonna die, where does the sacred part come in? I’m having trouble with that. ‘Cuz, I mean, even with all this stuff we preach about the sanctity of life, we don’t practice it. We don’t practice it. Look at what we’d kill: Mosquitoes and flies. ‘Cause they’re pests. Lions and tigers. ‘Cause it’s fun! Chickens and pigs. ‘Cause we’re hungry. Pheasants and quails. ‘Cause it’s fun. And we’re hungry. And people. We kill people… ‘Cause they’re pests. And it’s fun! And you might have noticed something else. The sanctity of life doesn’t seem to apply to cancer cells, does it? You rarely see a bumper sticker that says “Save the tumors.”. Or “I brake for advanced melanoma.”. No, viruses, mold, mildew, maggots, fungus, weeds, E. Coli bacteria, the crabs. Nothing sacred about those things. So at best the sanctity of life is kind of a selective thing. We get to choose which forms of life we feel are sacred, and we get to kill the rest. Pretty neat deal, huh? You know how we got it? We made the whole fucking thing up! Made it up!

Even a newspaperman, if you entice him into a cemetery at midnight, will believe in phantoms, for everyone is a visionary, if you scratch him deep enough. But the Celt is a visionary without scratching. W. B. Yeats

We have three core emotional needs, which I like to think of as peace, love, and understanding (thanks Nick Lowe and Elvis Costello). Negativity—in conversation, emotions, and actions—often springs from a threat to one of the three needs: a fear that bad things are going to happen (loss of peace), a fear of not being loved (loss of love), or a fear of being disrespected (loss of understanding). From these fears stem all sorts of other emotions—feeling overwhelmed, insecure, hurt, competitive, needy, and so on.

The Man With the Child in His Eyes’ – Kate Bush ‘Go Your Own Way’ – Fleetwood Mac ‘Sex and Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll’ – Ian Dury ‘David Watts’ – The Jam ‘Until the Night’ – Billy Joel ‘Rikki, Don’t Lose That Number’ – Steely Dan ‘Watching the Detectives’ – Elvis Costello ‘(I Am Always Touched by Your) Presence, Dear’ – Blondie ‘I Will Survive’ – Gloria Gaynor ‘Goodbye Girl’ – Squeeze ‘Make Me Smile (Come up and See Me)’ – Steve Harley ‘Girls Talk’ – Dave Edmunds ‘I Fought the Law’ – The Clash ‘Life in a Day’ – Simple Minds

The decisions we make, the things that happen to us, it all goes into forming the persons we become. I think the secret is, do we embrace our experiences and use them to build ourselves into becoming something better, or do we let them slowly eat away at us, like a cancer?

We Irish, with our intrinsic gift of language, transformed this necessity of using pseudonyms into a poetic legacy. There are from this tradition many names for Ireland herself, Dear Dark Head, Kathleen ni Houlihan, and Róisín, which you know of course, Kevin, is Irish for rose. So, if the pseudonym has something to do with the rose, we could be referring to a symbol for Ireland herself.

In every classic comedy duo, from Laurel and Hardy to Abbott and Costello to Martin and Lewis, in order for the exchange to work, the quality of the straight man had to be as dynamic as that of the funny guy. Carl was the best at this. I could use a single question as a springboard to unplanned exposition and tangents that would be as much of a surprise to Carl as they were to the audience. Carl was a gifted partner: While he deferred the punch lines to me, he knew me well enough to follow along and cross paths enough to set me up for more opportunities. He also knew he could throw me a complete curveball and I’d swing for the fences. We were a great ad-libbed high-wire act, and like the best high-wire acts, ours was dependent upon complete trust and respect for each other. Carl once said, “A brilliant mind in panic is a wonderful thing to behold.

Bad lovers face to face in the morning Shy apologies and polite regrets Slow dances that left no warning of Outraged glances and indiscreet yawning Good manners and bad breath get you nowhere Even presidents have newspaper lovers Ministers go crawling under covers She's no angel He's no saint They're all covered up with white washed grease paint And you say... Chorus: The teacher never told you anything but white lies But you never see the lies And you believe Oh you know you have been captured You feel so civilized And you look so pretty in your new lace sleeves The salty lips of the socialite sisters With their continental fingers that have never seen working blisters Oh I know they've got their problems I wish I was one of them They say daddy's coming home soon With his sergeant stripes and his Empire mug and spoon No more fast buck And when are they gonna learn their lesson When are they gonna stop all of these victory processions And you say...

I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal about me wearing the engagement ring,” Shay said to Michael from behind the wheel of his Range Rover. Before he had a chance to respond, she shifted from reverse to drive and shot out of the parking lot. Straight into oncoming traffic. “Shay, watch out for . . . ” He trailed off, his heart in his throat as she expertly avoided being creamed by another speeding SUV. With his hand still gripping the door and his foot pressed on the floor as if he could somehow miraculously slow the vehicle down, Michael said, “Obviously the ring is a big deal to you or you wouldn’t be trying to kill me.” “Being aggressive will save you. Being cautious, that’s what’ll kill you.” “No doubt you’ll live to be a hundred and ten, then.” He relaxed when the speedometer needle inched down toward a more reasonable speed. “I’m taking it that your life lesson only refers to driving; otherwise you would’ve been applauding my efforts at the club.” She glanced at him, a smile tipping up the corner of her mouth. “So, you actually choked on purpose to cozy up to Costello’s hired henchman and disrupted the dancer’s performance so the bouncers would haul you to Kozack’s office?” He ignored everything else but the part that would get him an answer to his earlier question. “I choked because you took my breath away, and—” She laughed. “Either you’re easily impressed or you don’t get out to many strip clubs. Kozack was going to fire me even before he found me in his office.” “Neither is true, but you didn’t let me finish. As incredible as you looked doing what you were doing on that pole, I choked because I saw the engagement ring on the chain around your neck.” He leaned across the console and slid his hand beneath her leather jacket. Her skin was like satin, and he could smell her warm, floral scent. The temptation to press his face to the tender spot between her shoulder and neck almost overwhelmed him. It was one of his favorite places to kiss her. One of her favorite places to be kissed.