Damon Albarn Quotes

I have to wear a new T-shirt every night. I throw them into the audience. One day I'm going to go around the world and reclaim all my T-shirts

If you don't see something as a career but as an important part of your life, you don't know how you're going to feel about it.

Each individual has their own opinions about whether war is an answer to any problems. Personally I think it's a waste of time, but I think more importantly, that it's is an issue that we haven't had any say in. That's why I feel so strongly about it. I don't feel like we've really been given any choice in this matter. I think if you had a referendum tomorrow, Tony Blair would have no choice but to call off the war.

I was approached by Oxfam to go to Mali as their ambassador and get involved in their various initiatives out there. But I felt that was missing the point of using me, a musician.

It always struck me that Africa was, in a strange way, a futuristic place and had elements and vibes and spirits that were going to inform the future. Africa Express is an attempt to engage that power outside Africa, and for everyone to benefit from it.

I want to be a better person in every aspect. I really don't feel I've in anyway fulfilled my potential in every area of my life. But I'm optimistic.

I've always known I'm incredibly special. All my life. You know? It's not a big deal.

I don't need to be a frontman all the time, and in fact, the older I get, the less of an urge it is inside me to play that role. I've still got it inside me, and I do occasionally allow it out.

China is one of those vast, continental conglomerates that ... I mean, if they were to start a tourist trade in China, they'd just bus people in from another province, you know what I mean? They're very self-contained.

I'm not a monarchist. But I'm English. And I have an irrational emotion for my country.

Being in Blur has allowed me to travel and hear the music that's being made all over the world.

As soon as it sounds fine, I'm on to the next thing, man.

Whether people like it or not, China is incredibly important to the future of mankind. For me, this is something that we all need to have intelligent discussions about in America, in Britain, in Europe.

Music is something that should speak for itself, straight from the heart. It took me a long time to understand that.

I used to go to work and take heroin in the studio and then stop when I came home,

More and more, cultural groups are cross-pollinating, and we're getting much more interesting art as a result.

I can't be bothered anymore about giving songs titles.

I enjoyed history at school. I'd always had a sense of pagan England.

The best way to get to know Africa is to go there and see what it is. To know somewhere that crazy and that magnificent, you have to spend some time among people, the rhythm of their lives.

I spent two years figuring out how I could turn it into something that would satisfy me as a musician but also make some kind of cross-cultural link. I feel that I kind of at least touched on the possibilities of cross-cultural music, but it is a lifetime's work, and I don't profess to be anything other than a novice at it.

I hope we can keep doing it this way - making music and art that are pure products of our influences while not really having to let the whole celebrity side of it get in the way. Then maybe more virtual bands will come out and do the same thing.

I'm a working musician, so it's what I do. I kind of always have lots of plates spinning, and it's the ones that keep spinning the longest that I end up doing.

I think pop music is a great place to get new ideas across.

There's need to be some sort of disturbance in your psyche for creativity to be sparked.

I like to put my iPad on the window and leave it there for however long the journey is, so that I'm staring out, and it's staring out. We're kind of staring out together. It's very poetic to me, watching that absent-minded passing of time. You realize how much you've taken in. What is left of that memory of you staring out of the window for an hour? It's all on the iPad.

Change terrifies people. They like new, but they don't like new with change.

It's not like my old self - I'm not in character anymore, I'm me. I'm not hiding behind that anymore.

I'm English, and I started off as a songwriter, so I can't really escape that - it's there.

I like to go to Africa purely with something to do. I'm not very comfortable getting into an armor-plated Land Rover and going to see things, with my hand gel, you know, it's not me at all. So I like to hang out and you know, really get to know people and try and do something that resonates with them.

I was naive enough to believe it would be enough to replace the government. Well, I made fun of the people in the government and then realized that even if we got rid of them, they were replaced by exactly the same guys.

If punk was about getting rid of hippies, then I'm getting rid of grunge.

The things that make me happy most are my family and working.

Oasis were like the bullies I had to put up with at school.

The Gorillaz cartoons seem more real to me than the actual people on TV. Because at least you know that there's some intelligence behind the cartoons, and there's a lot of work that's gone into it, so it can't all be just a lie.