Rufus Wainwright Quotes

Places that have experienced great defeat experience a kind of rebirth, which I think America has to do - unless we want to get more decrepit. I don't think we have to destroy the place totally.

I want to carve out a serious period of time to focus on the next opera without any distractions. And to do that you need money.

I could always escape into this demi-monde of homosexuality, which I feel really indebted to. It stopped me being a 'mummy's boy.'

I believe in freedom Freedom's apparently all I need But who's ever been free in this world? Who has never had to bleed in this world?

But I don't even think you hear me at all Under your medieval ceiling behind your biblical wall

I don't know if it will be my big comeback, but I think it is a statement - that I am a self-sustaining, vibrant, long-term artist, and I'm not going away! And if you don't give me credit, then the musical gods will!

Guess the world needs both sun And the moon too Sad with what I have except for you.

Why be in music, why write songs, if you can't use them to explore life or an idealized vision of life?

I definitely have a Luddite's approach to what's going on. I find that as I get older, I get stupider. For me, the iPhone is harder than reading Faust. I've been hanging out a bit with Lou Reed, and he's the complete opposite. He's into technology and is kind of like a toddler, compared to me, who's like an old 19th-century widow or something.

I very much faced my mother's death with hard, arduous and time-consuming labor. The more I would do, the less I would feel.

The operas I listen to aren't in English, and I want to listen to my opera after I'm done with it. I want to have the desire to play it on the stereo. To me, the language is part of the mystery.

When I was young, my mother [folk singer Kate McGarrigle] brought home this recording of Verdi's Requiem and we listened to it from top to bottom. By the end of it, I was a completely different person. It was literally a requiem mass for my former self. I was about 12 or 13. The Requiem just totally hooked into what I was going through emotionally - discovering my sexuality right at the time when AIDS was devastating my community and dealing with intense parental situations.

I still believe that love is the most powerful force in the world, even though I am yet to experience it fully.

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

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

When it comes to sitting down and composing, there is no hesitation, no concern, no critics breathing fire down my neck. For me, writing a song is the purest part of all. No one can mess with that.

Well, my great lesson with that was I went to the same production twice - once completely high and once completely sober - and both times were equally wonderful.

I am always writing; if you want to survive in this business, you need to keep working, keep creating and never stop the output.

My parents were serious working musicians, but they were not stars - not like pop stars that you have now. They had to make a living and that meant touring, working hard, going on the road - and we were roped in.

The thing I hate most is false modesty. The artists who are, like, "Oh, you know, I'm really not that good. Oh, I can't believe I'm here." I find it vaguely sinister, even.

Life is a game and true love is a trophy.

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

I like to sing to Verdi, I like singing to Sibelius, and Mahler maybe.