Top 50 Randy Newman Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Short people got no reason to live.”

— Randy Newman

2. “I ain’t saying that I’m better than you, but maybe I am.”

— Randy Newman

3. “You’ve got troubles, I’ve got ’em too. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you. We’ll stick together to see it through cause you’ve got a friend in me.”

— Randy Newman

4. “But if you’re doing something, show up everyday, and something good might happen – it’s not going to happen if you don’t show up.”

— Randy Newman

5. “Cleveland, city of light! City of magic!”

— Randy Newman

6. “Crank up the Beach Boys, Baby.”

— Randy Newman

7. “I like science – geography, meteorology, cosmology.”

— Randy Newman

8. “It takes a whole lot of medicine for me to pretend I am somebody else.”

— Randy Newman

9. “It’s funny; people get so doctrinaire about music. It should be the last thing you don’t have an open mind about.”

— Randy Newman

10. “Sometimes what I’m writing is more important to me than the rest of my life. It’s more important to me that I’m writing well than anything else.”

— Randy Newman

11. “They don’t respect us, so let’s surprise them, we’ll drop the big one, pulverize them.”

— Randy Newman

12. “And the Lord said: I burn down your cities – how blind you must be. I take from you your children, and you say how blessed are we. You all must be crazy to put your faith in me. That’s why I love mankind.”

— Randy Newman

13. “Asia’s crowded and Europe’s too old, Africa is far too hot and Canada’s too cold. And South America stole our name, let’s drop the big one.”

— Randy Newman

14. “He got drunk last night, kicked Mama down the stairs. But I’m alright, so I don’t care.”

— Randy Newman

15. “Stay away from drugs. They’re not worth it. I’ve tried, but there’s none of them that’s worth it.”

— Randy Newman

16. “I’ve written a song for Prince. I never showed it to Prince, but just to see if I could do it. At the time, when I sort of knew him, he was recording a song a day. I wondered if I could do that. So I wrote it.”

— Randy Newman

17. “I like Public Enemy a great deal.”

— Randy Newman

18. “The best of my songs are more than just a joke. There’s something else going on – a character, or it’s not just a plain joke.”

— Randy Newman

19. “God bless the potholes on Memory Lane.”

— Randy Newman

20. “I don’t remember ever having writer’s block. If I sit in there for four hours, I’ll usually have something.”

— Randy Newman

21. “If getting on the radio was a major motivation, I’d be one of the worst writers of all time. I admire people who do it, and I think it’s a nice way to work, but I try to do the best I can and write what I like. I don’t worry about it.”

— Randy Newman

22. “Learn about the world, the way it works, any kind of science and anthropology, it’s really an interesting place we live in. Evolution is a really fantastic idea, even more than the idea of God I think.”

— Randy Newman

23. “Most of my songs are about insensitivity of some kind.”

— Randy Newman

24. “I’ve always had a lot of respect from the people I respected.”

— Randy Newman

25. “I like the performing. And interviews, even. And the stuff that’s not sitting in a room by yourself with empty paper. But I never loved writing, to tell you the truth.”

— Randy Newman

26. “I like to write my lyrics on clay tablets.”

— Randy Newman

27. “We don’t know our ass from a hole in the ground.”

— Randy Newman

28. “We’ll have a kid or maybe we’ll rent one. He’s got to be straight, we don’t want a bent one.”

— Randy Newman

29. “I’d like to explain why you fine young men had to be blown apart to defend this mud hole.”

— Randy Newman

30. “This one guy’s wife is such a pretty brown thing, that I’m liable to give her a poke or two. Whaddaya think of that?”

— Randy Newman

31. “I am half a man, holy Jesus, what a drag.”

— Randy Newman

32. “People become who they are. Even Beethoven became Beethoven.”

— Randy Newman

33. “I always thought my best album was ‘Trouble in Paradise.’ I was the happiest with that one.”

— Randy Newman

34. “I realized that, instead of moving people closer to a salvation decision, an answer can push them further away. Rather than engaging their minds or urging them to consider an alternative perspective, an answer can give them ammunition for future attacks against the gospel.”

— Randy Newman

35. “I sit here in this chair, I pour myself some whiskey, and watch my troubles vanish into the air.”

— Randy Newman

36. “If you have a kid and you try irony out on them, they don’t get it at 7, 8 years old. You can’t really hide the Internet from kids. It worries me some particularly because I’ve done Disney and Pixar stuff.”

— Randy Newman

37. “It’s very hard to get rich and famous at a young age and handle it well.”

— Randy Newman

38. “If I were to die tomorrow, I think they’d say Newman 56, composer of the hit song, Short People. Jumped off a mountain today.”

— Randy Newman

39. “People do not reject the gospel primarily because they’re too thickheaded to get it. Unbelief grows out of other soils besides intellectual confusion. Instead, people reject the good news because they’re enslaved to other kinds of news. They’re in love with something unworthy of such devotion, and it won’t let them go.”

— Randy Newman

40. “I am not overlooking any mail. I’m looking at all of it. I even wrote back to the Viagra people.”

— Randy Newman

41. “I have owned and played a Steinway all my life. It’s the best Beethoven piano. The best Chopin piano. And the best Ray Charles piano. I like it, too.”

— Randy Newman

42. “Mostly, I don’t write overtly personal stuff.”

— Randy Newman

43. “But I don’t want to sing everything out of the side of my mouth, I want people to understand what I mean.”

— Randy Newman

44. “I once had dinner with Madonna and I wasn’t nervous but within about a minute I found myself talking about underwear.”

— Randy Newman

45. “My music has a high irritation factor. I’ve always tried to say something. Eccentric lyrics about eccentric people. Often it was is joke. But I would plead guilty on the grounds that I prefer eccetricity to the bland.”

— Randy Newman

46. “I’ve often written about places that are totally different from anything I know. Sometimes they turn out better.”

— Randy Newman

47. “I seen her with the milkman, riding down the street. When you’re through with my baby, milkman, send her home to me.”

— Randy Newman

48. “I think in most cases, unless you’re writing about a character who is garrulous, you say what you’ve got to say and then get out. Those little conjunctions, those little turnaround words help you do it. That’s the way I like to write: I get rid of things rather than add them.”

— Randy Newman

49. “Don’t forget to bring that little blonde haired girl along. You know the one, love to watch her jump up and down.”

— Randy Newman

50. “I’m pretty proud of my film music in general.”

— Randy Newman