Top 180 David Byrne Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Cycling can be lonely, but in a good way.”

— David Byrne

Featured in: Lonely Quotes

2. “I never listen to the radio unless I rent a car.”

— David Byrne

3. “People will remember you better if you always wear the same outfit...”

— David Byrne

4. “Body odor is the window to the soul.”

— David Byrne

5. “PowerPoint may not be of any use for you in a presentation, but it may liberate you in another way, an artistic way. Who knows.”

— David Byrne

6. “You may say to yourself: “Well, how did I get here?”

— David Byrne

7. “As everything becomes digitized, there’s the idea that things that can’t be digitized become more valuable.”

— David Byrne

8. “This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco, this ain’t no fooling around.”

— David Byrne

9. “Sometimes it’s a form of love just to talk to somebody that you have nothing in common with and still be fascinated by their presence.”

— David Byrne

10. “When everything is worth money, then money is worth nothing.”

— David Byrne

11. “I am an immigrant with a Green Card and, therefore, I am not eligible to vote in a federal election.”

— David Byrne

12. “Cycling is a joy and faster than many other modes of transport, depending on the time of day. It clears the head.”

— David Byrne

13. “Things fall apart, it’s scientific.”

— David Byrne

14. “Facts are simple and facts are straight. Facts are lazy and facts are late. Facts all come with points of view. Facts don’t do what I want them to. Facts just twist the truth around. Facts are living turned inside out.”

— David Byrne

15. “Rich people will travel great distances to look at poor people...”

— David Byrne

16. “I always think the everyday is more relevant than anything too grand because we all have to deal with it.”

— David Byrne

17. “Performers try harder.”

— David Byrne

18. “There is water at the bottom of the ocean.”

— David Byrne

19. “Physical contact is a human necessity.”

— David Byrne

20. “When you fall in love, you feel like a missing piece of a puzzle that’s been found.”

— David Byrne

21. “As I define it, rock and roll is dead. The attitude isn’t dead, but the music is no longer vital. It doesn’t have the same meaning. The attitude, though, is still very much alive – and it still informs other kinds of music.”

— David Byrne

22. “Everything’s intentional. It’s just filling in the dots.”

— David Byrne

23. “Singing is a trick to get people to listen to music for longer than they would ordinarily.”

— David Byrne

24. “I wave to the double-decker buses from my bike, but the passengers never wave back. Why? Am I not an attraction?”

— David Byrne

25. “We don’t make music, it makes us.”

— David Byrne

26. “To shake your rump is to be environmentally aware.”

— David Byrne

27. “When things get so absurd and so stupid and so ridiculous that you just can’t bear it, you cannot help but turn everything into a joke.”

— David Byrne

28. “With music, you often don’t have to translate it. It just affects you, and you don’t know why.”

— David Byrne

29. “There’s an old joke that you know you’re in heaven if the cooks are Italian and the engineering is German. If it’s the other way around you’re in hell.”

— David Byrne

30. “I’d like to be known for more than being the guy in the big suit.”

— David Byrne

31. “Deep down, I know I have this intuition or instinct that a lot of creative people have, that their demons are also what make them create.”

— David Byrne

32. “Science’s job is to map our ignorance.”

— David Byrne

33. “You can know or not know how a car runs and still enjoy riding in a car.”

— David Byrne

34. “Still, making music is its own reward.”

— David Byrne

35. “Yeah, I like to keep myself interested – I’ll kind of throw myself into some area that I don’t completely know or understand, that I’m not adept at, so I’m forced to swim in order to stay afloat. There’s a good feeling that comes from that.”

— David Byrne

36. “What begins as a random walk often ends up taking you somewhere, somewhere that you later realise was exactly where you wanted to go.”

— David Byrne

37. “We are like the birds. We adapt. We sing.”

— David Byrne

38. “The more you know, the more you know you don’t know and the more you know that you don’t know.”

— David Byrne

39. “It’s like 60 Minutes on acid.”

— David Byrne

40. “Crime is a job. Sex is a job. Growing up is a job. School is a job. Going to parties is a job. Religion is a job. Being creative is a job.”

— David Byrne

41. “On a bike, being just slightly above pedestrian and car eye level, one gets a perfect view of the goings-on in one’s own town.”

— David Byrne

42. “A little touch of chaos and danger makes a city sexy.”

— David Byrne

43. “I have something to say about the difference between American and European cities, but I forgot what it was. I have it written down at home somewhere.”

— David Byrne

44. “The true face of smoking is disease, death and horror – not the glamour and sophistication the pushers in the tobacco industry try to portray.”

— David Byrne

45. “I like a good story and I also like staring at the sea – do I have to choose between the two?”

— David Byrne

Featured in: Quotes About Stories

46. “By the time Talking Heads were starting, my feeling was to throw out everything and start from scratch onstage; strip it down to as close to zero as you can get and then you can make it yours.”

— David Byrne

47. “The arts don’t exist in isolation.”

— David Byrne

48. “I couldn’t take pictures of green rolling hills.”

— David Byrne

49. “I found music to be the therapy of choice.”

— David Byrne

50. “Punk was defined by an attitude rather than a musical style.”

— David Byrne