Jarvis Cocker Quotes

Anyone who thinks they're sexy needs their head checked.

The best thing you can give someone is the freedom to make their own mind up - and then, if it's not working out 5 years later, you can give your opinion.

You don't often hear people say, 'Oh, since he's been taking them drugs, he's such a nice person! He's really come out of his shell, he's really nice, he's blossomed'.

If you get involved in music expecting to make a living out of it, then you've picked the wrong thing to do. That shouldn't really be in your mind.

I don't really care what someone's background is; creativity can come from any background.

If you wanted to be a creative person and you are confronted with the sum product of mankind's creativity up to this moment in history, that's pretty daunting, like, "Where can I fit my voice in amongst all that?"

I know that some filmmakers strive for a kind of naturalistic approach, but you're never going to capture something that's really natural - just the simple fact that you choose to put a frame around something means that you've already chosen one particular thing to put more attention on.

Its OK to grow up, just as long as you don't grow old. Face it you are young.

I am proud, and more than a little excited, to be asked to work with Faber in an editorial capacity. It is my dearest hope that we will produce some fantastic books together.

I would rather kill myself than play my own music... I can't stand it when people do that.

I always feel like there are specific things about Houston. There's one museum in particular in Houston. So many of the things that I'm interested in now I can sort of trace back to that museum, which introduced me to them.

I'm not a religious person but I do like the idea of Sunday as a day set apart from the rest of the week. It's nice to have a period of reflection and have time to think about things.

There's the famous thing that the A&R man from the record company is supposed to do: He's supposed to come into the studio and listen to the songs you've been recording and then say, 'Guys, I don't hear any singles.' And then everybody falls into a terrible depression because you have to write one.

I'm sure Sting's a lovely guy. It's just that nobody wants to be seen as that holier-than-thou thing. That over-earnestness is a bit of a problem with people in bands and celebrities or whatever.

Human beings aren't meant to be solely consumers - eventually, something has to come out. Otherwise, I don't really see what the point of all that consumption is. The idea behind watching things and listening to things is that it stirs something within you, and hopefully that will stimulate you to then create your own thing.

As a shy kid growing up in Sheffield, I fantasized about how it would be great to be famous so I wouldn't actually have to talk to people and feel awkward. And of course, as we all know from fairy stories, when you achieve that ambition, you find out you don't want it.

I've stuck to the same things for twenty years. I try to look like a slightly edgy geography teacher. Like what a geography teacher looked like when I was in school. Cords, sensible shoes and glasses. I never liked geography much as a subject though. In fact the only geography teacher I can remember from school was a woman who had a moustache.

The most entertaining songs don't always come from a nice place. In songs where I think I'm being really sensitive, they seem quite boring actually. I've found that the songs that come out of nastier, more misanthropic places are better.

A Conservative government is necessary. There is no credible alternative.

For TV you also get those pre-interviews when researchers ask you what you're going to say. The pre-interview drives me insane. If they've already decided the outcome, why don't I just hand in an essay? Maybe if we talk we'll find something out. I'd rather just have an awkward pause.

I believe that humans adapt to circumstance. The Internet is quite an unprecedented circumstance, so it's going to take people a while to get their heads around it.

You get to a certain age and you just want to prove that you can still rock - that you've still got it.

For me, the great thing about music is that anybody can do it.

I like bossy girls. I don't like girls who just do whatever they think you want them to do, and follow you around trying to please you all the time.

I don't think people should abuse the fact that they are in showbiz. You still have to be human. I think that's the point. Showbiz is about showing human things - just amplified, that's all. And when it gets too much into, "Hey, we're part of the showbiz club and we can do what we want," it turns me off and I hate it.

I was kind of reared by television, but the BBC, it still had that thing - and people are always invoking that kind of Reithian idea - where you could learn stuff from it. If you put a kid in front of a telly now to be reared by that you'd just have a jibbering idiot, you know what I mean? Just adverts for a start. It's almost like the programmes are an afterthought, the real business of this channel is to sell you things and we're just going to space out those announcements with some crap to watch.

Well, once you've resigned yourself to the fact that you are the more mature pop performer and you're past the age you ever thought you would do it, you might as well do it as long as you can. As long as I can still lift a microphone, then I'll do it, you know.

You try and imagine what it must have been like to first see something moving on a screen. It must have blown your mind, because up to then life went by and there was no way to capture it. You could only get one instant and you didn't get the movement. So it's like having a bit of control over time really, because it's happening in real time or what seems to be real time, and then you can play it backwards and you can watch things again and again.

I would like to believe in an afterlife; it makes things more palatable. But I'm not banking on it.

I think the credit crunch is a brilliant thing. We should all stop moaning and start celebrating. When times are tough, it's an opportunity to start looking at life in a different way.

I speak onstage to try to establish some method of communication. The songs are supposed to be a way of communicating. But speech and drinks and sometimes chocolates are also a way of communicating.

The good thing about people really is their iffy-ness and dodginess, isnt it?

What people have to make sure of is that they're not replicating something that already exists. You really have to ask yourself: "Is there a point in me doing this? Has this already been said before? Is this moving things along or is this just adding to the giant pile of junk that's already there?"

The working class has been turned into a consuming class - a situation has been created where people value their worth by what they can afford.

Pornography takes all the reality out of sex and Disney does that to family life.

I recently spent quite a bit of time in Sheffield, England, which is where I'm from. I wouldn't move back there, but it's funny when you spend a bit of time in the place where you were brought up. You kind of realize how that place has had quite a big effect on you or made you a certain way.

I am passionate about keeping the human dimension in things. You have to keep the rough edges and the inconsistencies, that's what makes it interesting. I've always striven to be as sloppy as possible.

I think basically becoming famous has taken the place of going to Heaven in modern society, hasn't it? That's the place where your dreams will come true. It's an act of faith now; they think that's going to sort things out.

People who make good music aren't necessarily nice people.