Michael Stipe quotes

Michael Stipe is an American musician and songwriter, best known as the lead singer of the alternative rock band R.E.M. His distinctive voice and poetic lyrics helped shape the sound of alternative music in the late 20th century. He has also been active as a producer and visual artist. Here are 34 of his quotes:

My feeling is that labels are for canned food... I am what I am - and I know what I am. (Michael Stipe)
My iPod that was programmed by Peter Buck. It has 7,000 songs hand-picked for me by him. View quote
Michael Stipe
So, we just kind of created our own thing and that's part of the beauty of Athens: is that it's so off the map and there's no way you could ever be the East Village or an L.A. scene or a San Francisco scene, that it just became its own thing. View quote
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. View quote
Michael Stipe
I'm not homosexual, I'm not hetrosexual, I'm just sexual. View quote
Michael Stipe
When you meet a stranger, look at his shoes. Keep your money in your shoes. View quote
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. View quote
Michael Stipe
Sometimes before we make a record I go back and listen to a few. It's equally humbling and uplifting. View quote
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. View quote
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. View quote
Michael Stipe
Never eat broccoli when there are cameras around. (Michael Stipe)
If I'm tired of me, I'm sure the public is as well. View quote
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. View quote
Michael Stipe
I'm just not that fascinating a person to have had all those lives that I've written about. View quote
Michael Stipe
I went through a period where I was really tired of seeing and reading about myself. View quote
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. View quote
Michael Stipe
I really wanted to be on Six Feet Under as a corpse. That would be hysterical. View quote
Michael Stipe
There are people that very strongly identify themselves as gay and then lesbian, and then I think there are a lot of people who are kind of some percentage or some version of that. View quote
Michael Stipe
Because the casual music listeners are the ones who turn on the radio and they don't really care what's playing, they just know that they kinda like it or it's easy to drive to or it's easy to sing along to or whatever. View quote
Michael Stipe
There was never a golden era of American radio as far as I can tell. View quote
Michael Stipe
When we first started, we were a band from Athens and that was so off the map. (Michael Stipe)
So, we went from being an Athens band to being a Georgia band to being a Southern band to being an American band from the East Coast to being an American band and now we're kind of an international phenomenon. View quote
Michael Stipe
There was a point in the '80s when I looked out at my audience and I saw people that - were I not on the stage - they'd sooner slug me as they walked by me on the sidewalk. And I realized that I was way beyond the choir. View quote
Michael Stipe
If you disagree with me, fine! Because that's the great thing about America, we can disagree! View quote
Michael Stipe
Super casual music listeners. That's most of the people in the world. And you have to understand, that's why Top 40 radio exists. It's not there for people who seek out music and who love music. View quote
Michael Stipe

Michael Stipe

Michael Stipe - Image
Photo: Wikimedia commons, CC BY-SA 2.5
Occupation: American Musician
Born: January 4, 1960
Quotes count: 34