Peter Gabriel Quotes

“All of the buildings, all of those cars
Were once just a dream
In somebodys head.”

“Artists everywhere steal mercilessly all the time and I think this is healthy.”

“At the heart, it is world music that I do. It's all connections. Ultimately, we're all connected.”

“Concerning iTunes, the deals have mainly been done with the record companies. But the artists, with some exceptions, haven't been very well-represented. This is partly because the record companies have largely been copyright owners.”

“Deadlines are things that we pass through on the way to finishing.”

“Dream big and surround yourself with brilliance, even if you end up dressed up like a flower or a sexually transmitted disease.”

“Fear, she's the mother of violence.”

“From the pain come the dream
From the dream come the vision
From the vision come the people
From the people come the power
From this power come the change”

“Having lots of people talking highly of you and respecting your art and your work, this is one of the best feelings that you can have.”

“I love 5.1. Sometimes you can't squeeze everything in comfortably into a stereo picture. There is a lot more space in a 5.1 environment.”

“I think another thing is that we don't really want exclusivity. We accept that it is in the artist's interest to be on sale in every place where they sell music.”

“I think it is the weak and the young and the minorities that you need to look after to get a healthy creative environment – to get a lot of choices, a lot of different styles of music, a lot experimental stuff that everyone else feeds off.”

“I think one of the things about writing in the studio is that the song hasn't matured, if you like, so quite often the vocals are early attempts. Whereas once you've taken it out on the road a bit, you learn more about a song.”

“I think that you get the mood of a song stronger if you get it right that way. On the other hand, you put some songs out live and they don't catch flight. They just flop. It is hard to tell until they are out there.”

“I try when I'm writing to fill my head and my ears with all sorts of stuff and then let it settle and filter through. At a certain point it seems like fruitless activity because you're taking a lot of time and not seeming to get anything. And then, slowly, you realize you've actually digested elements and that your thinking is being freed up and the way you build up compositions is changed as a result of what you've been listening to.”

“I was introduced to lots of great music through my local record store. It was a place where people knew music and they knew me, and could make great suggestions and discoveries. Whether it is in the physical world or on-line, the value of a great and knowledgeable record store has not gone away”

“In your eyes I see the doorway to a thousand churches.”

“It's only in uncertainty that we're naked and alive.”

“Music is a spiritual doorway its power comes from the fact that it plugs directly into the soul, unlike a lot of visual art or textual information that has to go through the more filtering processes of the brain.”

“One doubt, one voice, one war, one truth, one dream.”

“One thing that really appeals to me is this idea of music being a living thing that has an evolution that, in a way, enables the artist to sell a process rather than a piece of product.”

“People have the strength to overcome their bodies. Their beauty is in their minds.”

“Self-conscious, uncertain, I'm showered by the dust. But the spirit enters into me and I submit to trust.”

“Surround yourself with brilliance.”

“The dream is a world in which anyone who has anything bad happen to them has a chance of getting their story uploaded, being seen, being watched.”

“The earthly power sucks shadowed milk from sleepy tears undone, from nippled skin as smooth as silk the bugles blown as one.”

“The outside world is black and white with only one color dead.”

“The UN Declaration of Human Rights laid down what any person might reasonably expect, yet there are remarkably few people who enjoy these rights. With cameras in the hands of activists and meaningful distribution of those images, we will witness what really goes on in this world and hopefully want to change it.”

“There has always been a strong relationship between music and religion. It is because they both plug directly into the heart and can have real power for good or evil.”

“They think so small, they use small words. But not me, I'm smarter than that, I've worked it out. I'm stretching my mouth to let those big words come on out.”