Top 120 Rufus Wainwright Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “Premiering a new opera is probably one of the hardest things in the world to do, and opening nights of any opera are always pretty stressful.”

— Rufus Wainwright

102. “Musically I’m able to keep going, because it’s not about money and it’s not about success. It’s a challenge.”

— Rufus Wainwright

103. “Looking back, one of the things I love most about my mom was that she never, ever relented. She stuck to her guns right up until the end. She wasn’t abusive, but she was never that thrilled that I was gay.”

— Rufus Wainwright

104. “I think the minute you mention death, people run for the hills – unless it’s heavy metal. People do not like death.”

— Rufus Wainwright

105. “I am under no illusion that I will ever be the greatest opera composer in the world, with Wagner and Verdi and Strauss before me. I think my work could fit very nicely into musicals, though.”

— Rufus Wainwright

106. “After years of hotels, I’m horribly inept at cleaning up after myself.”

— Rufus Wainwright

107. “I would love to have a number one hit. The truth is if I don’t get one, I’ll be fine, but at the same time, the truth is that I’m dying for one, as well.”

— Rufus Wainwright

108. “If I had had more of a strategic attitude towards how to reveal my sexuality, and if I’d even played with it a little more, I could have sold a lot more albums and been a lot more famous.”

— Rufus Wainwright

109. “I think my mother, more than anyone, knew the importance of inspiration. If it was occurring, you had to use it.”

— Rufus Wainwright

110. “I have this horrible, horrible habit of going on YouTube and checking out comments about what I do.”

— Rufus Wainwright

111. “For better or worse, I’ve always been curious musically. Whether it’s opera or Judy Garland or pop, I’ve deliberately sought those things out. I’ve never wanted to do the same things over and over. Some think I’ve accomplished what I set out to do, and others consider me a dilettante.”

— Rufus Wainwright

112. “I do not consider myself a guitar player. My father is a guitar player – I’m not.”

— Rufus Wainwright

113. “I don’t really have a relationship with the guitar; it’s like my slutty lover, whereas I’m married to the piano.”

— Rufus Wainwright

114. “I love being not cool.”

— Rufus Wainwright

115. “The Germany I was enthused with was more old fashioned and kind of romantic. I just got there, and the next thing you know, I had this huge gilded album. It was kind of an amazing experience because I didn’t intend it to be that way.”

— Rufus Wainwright

116. “I think we could all be a bit more elitist.”

— Rufus Wainwright

117. “I’ll be honest, I worry sometimes about what I’ve done. I have tied my whole person to my art and, whatever it takes to get that hook, I will go there and do it.”

— Rufus Wainwright

118. “I came out of the closet very young, and I had to cut my teeth pretty fast.”

— Rufus Wainwright

119. “I strive for what you do find in Shakespeare’s work – that there is a definite humanity and a definite character behind the writing in the sonnets, and it’s very real because it’s so deeply personal. I try to aspire to that in what I do.”

— Rufus Wainwright

120. “I have earned hundreds of thousands of pounds, but I can’t seem to get to grips with money.”

— Rufus Wainwright

121. “Growing up, for years and years I had no idea what the plots of operas were, and that’s part of what fascinated me – I could make them up and learn bits and pieces of what was going on over time. There’s something about it being always a step away that makes it more fun to chase.”

— Rufus Wainwright

122. “A diaper is as inspiring as a drink.”

— Rufus Wainwright

123. “I think everybody identified at a pretty young age that I was fairly entranced with myself. And that I had to be tempered.”

— Rufus Wainwright

124. “I’m very much a romantic. I’m highly attuned to an older sensibility, which I believe is alive and well. We’re not that far ahead of the Romantic Age in society.”

— Rufus Wainwright

125. “I have a good face for what I do.”

— Rufus Wainwright

126. “I have never cooked a meal in my life and always end up paying for dozens of people to eat with me.”

— Rufus Wainwright

127. “I definitely have a Luddite’s approach to what’s going on. I find that as I get older, I get stupider.”

— Rufus Wainwright

128. “I think I’ve done a pretty fantastic job, but of course I want to sell millions of records.”

— Rufus Wainwright

129. “Every video I do is over budget by the time I walk on set. I am massively extravagant in my personal habits.”

— Rufus Wainwright

130. “As an artist, you put so much into what you do and it can all be torn down in a nanosecond.”

— Rufus Wainwright

131. “I personally don’t have the ability to lie about my life, for better or for worse.”

— Rufus Wainwright

132. “Why be in music, why write songs, if you can’t use them to explore life or an idealized vision of life?”

— Rufus Wainwright