Phil Collins Quotes Page 2

“In Genesis we saw ourselves as song-writers. After Peter Gabriel left I was the first to say: It's OK – we can just do instrumentals.”

“It's actually come as quite a shock to learn just how many people don't like me.”

“It's not often that an English drummer gets an Oscar. So I'm very, very proud of that.”

“Many of the articles printed over the last few months have ended up painting a picture of me that is more than a little distorted.”

“Many people think of me as a perfectionist, someone who polishes and shines each song and performance. I've always been bothered by that assumption.”

“My only saving grace is that I actually collect things that nobody else is interested in.”

“No seriously... when there's families, you tend to go back to your room after the gig rather than go for a drink with the other guys. But there's always someone who's got something going, like the tour manager.”

“On the day of the show, I sit down with someone that speaks very good English and someone who speaks the local language very well and work out what I'm going to say.”

“That's going to be on my headstone: He came. He wrote 'In the Air Tonight'. He died.”

“The difference between the American version of 'Live Aid' and the British one – in England, if you wanted a cup of tea, you made it yourself. If you wanted a sandwich, you bought it. In typical American style, at the American concert, there were laminated tour passes and champagne and caviar.”

“The world is in your hands, now use it.”

“There's no magic for getting into the groove... just banging away at it. Sometimes the lyrics come first, sometimes the music.”

“To be honest, producing records interests me less at the moment and I really don't want to get involved in album projects that are going to take up a lot of time.”

“To see a lot of the smaller labels disappear or get gobbled up by the bigger labels, that's a shame. It was a bit of a shock at first to see the demise of the record stores.”

“We stayed in some pretty shabby places in Europe.”

“When I go on Japanese Airlines, I really love it because I like Japanese food.”

“When we're touring America or Europe, we use our own plane and a great advantage of that is it cuts out an awful lot of time checking in. You literally drive up to the plane, get on and then drive off at the other end.”

“Yes, I am aware that I have become a caricature. I've thought about this. Conceptually, what I'd like to do is the equivalent of writing myself out of the script.”

“You know, a song is like a kid. You bring it up. And sometimes something you thought was going to be fantastic, by the time it's finished, is a bit of a disappointment.”

“You know, I never wanted to be a singer.”

“You know, I've released some great records and I've released some dogs. But frankly, the fun is in creating the thing.”