Michael Stipe Quotes

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Michael Stipe

Profession : Musician

Birth : January 4, 1960

Sometimes before we make a record I go back and listen to a few. It's equally humbling and uplifting.

Michael Stipe

My feeling is that labels are for canned food... I am what I am - and I know what I am.

Michael Stipe

I've always felt that sexuality is a really slippery thing. In this day and age, it tends to get categorized and labeled, and I think labels are for food. Canned food.

Michael Stipe

When we first started, we were a band from Athens and that was so off the map.

Michael Stipe

So, when you divide the world into music lovers, music fans and then those people who are just very casual about their music, it's wallpaper to them, it's elevator music, it's just the thing that's playing in the background that helps them through their day.

Michael Stipe

I'm not homosexual, I'm not hetrosexual, I'm just sexual.

Michael Stipe

I think there were early critics who wanted us to change the world because the Sex Pistols failed.

Michael Stipe

When you meet a stranger, look at his shoes. Keep your money in your shoes.

Michael Stipe

I went through a period where I was really tired of seeing and reading about myself.

Michael Stipe

I'm tired of being this solemn poet of the masses, the enigma shrouded in a mystery.

Michael Stipe

We toured that record for a year, which turned out to be the culmination of ten years of being constantly on the road. We were sick to death of touring.

Michael Stipe

Never eat broccoli when there are cameras around.

Michael Stipe

Peter was sick of being a pop star, the guitar god, and so he decided to teach himself other instruments. Among the instruments that he picked up was the mandolin.

Michael Stipe

I'm just not that fascinating a person to have had all those lives that I've written about.

Michael Stipe

If I'm tired of me, I'm sure the public is as well.

Michael Stipe

But I think the one thing that I can say about us is that we're very consistent about certain things and part of that is our desire to do the very best work that we can and not rest on our laurels, or not allow formula to come into what we do.

Michael Stipe

My iPod that was programmed by Peter Buck. It has 7,000 songs hand-picked for me by him.

Michael Stipe

When I get really hammered I take my clothes off. That's a sure sign. It's been a long time since the last time I did that. Probably a year.

Michael Stipe

On planes I always cry. Something about altitude, the lack of oxygen and the bad movies. I cried over a St. Bernard movie once on a plane. That was really embarrassing.

Michael Stipe

We made part of the record in Miami, and I would go down to the beach, and not 20 feet from the water I see a fish that is at least seven feet long swimming close to the shore. I did not go back in the ocean the entire month.

Michael Stipe