Phil Collins Quotes

Non-physicality may soon come to dominate our reality. Thanx Quatum Mechanics!

I suppose Phil Collins offers something for everybody, and in hipdom that's not cool. But in the real world, there's no shame in that at all.

You know, a song is like a kid. You bring it up. And sometimes something you thought was going to be fantastic, by the time it's finished, is a bit of a disappointment.

I'm not trying necessarily to become a movie star; that wouldn't be bad but that's not the aim. I'm just trying to do interesting things and go into areas where I've not been before.

I'm fascinated by what people will do to each other. Actually, I'm sort of interested in the gory details of life.

I'm writing new songs for a Broadway version of Tarzan, which is very interesting. I think what I learned from the Brother Bear score side of things, I've brought into the new Tarzan songs. Thinking outside just guitar, bass, drums and keyboards.

Wait for it, wait for it! Anticipation is half the fun, So I've been told ...

God is a spa-bath of water and we are all individual bubbles

To be honest, producing records interests me less at the moment and I really don't want to get involved in album projects that are going to take up a lot of time.

I very rarely listen to the in-flight stuff.

The difference between the American version of 'Live Aid' and the British one - in England, if you wanted a cup of tea, you made it yourself. If you wanted a sandwich, you bought it. In typical American style, at the American concert, there were laminated tour passes and champagne and caviar.

There's no magic for getting into the groove ... just banging away at it. Sometimes the lyrics come first, sometimes the music.

I can't remember much about the early flights, except that it was ages before we got into First Class.

I'm not a singer who plays a bit of drums. I'm a drummer that sings a bit.

We stayed in some pretty shabby places in Europe.

To see a lot of the smaller labels disappear or get gobbled up by the bigger labels, that's a shame. It was a bit of a shock at first to see the demise of the record stores.

I never said I was at the Alamo. Someone else said I was at the Alamo. Now I'm a nutter. I don't think that's fair.

Think twice; it's just another day for you and me in paradise.

The stereotypical rock-star-trashing-a-hotel-room thing? Those days had passed by the time I was in a band big enough to do it.

I have never been a Conservative, or at least not since being a young teenager. My father voted Conservative, and even his doing that was a hangover from the '50s and '60s, which may have been an influence on me.

Catering on planes, like on British Rail, is a standing joke, but I don't really have a problem with it. I don't quite know what people expect.

On the day of the show, I sit down with someone that speaks very good English and someone who speaks the local language very well and work out what I'm going to say.

Everyones a hypercrit and if you don't agree you're a liar as well

I don't own an ABBA album, and I never had the urge to go and buy one. If you're just talking about well crafted pop songs, they were fantastic.

I'm just trying to do things that are interesting for me.

When destiny calls you, you've got to be strong. I may not be with you, but you've got to move on.

I don't really listen to music.

I've been a long-distance father.

I know it shouldn't make a difference, but crossing the dateline, we weren't sure what day it was - it was very strange. Now, I seem to cope with it better.

Many people think of me as a perfectionist, someone who polishes and shines each song and performance. I've always been bothered by that assumption.

If it's the beginning of something - like an album, I'm working on the lyrics and I take a walkman and headset.

Put your faith in what you most believe in.

I can't play anywhere near like I used to, and I was a hot drummer. It doesn't bother me, because frankly, if you get to that point where you can't hold a drumstick properly, there are many other things in life which are far more important, like cutting a loaf of bread or a piece of cheese.

Originally, I thought the story of the Alamo was all these men defending their liberty when they could have left, knowing they were going to die. That's without a doubt what appealed to me, the romance and the nobility. But, as in life, the more you dig the more you find out that things weren't quite like that.

Beyond a certain point, the music isn't mine anymore. It's yours.

The answer is inside your head; it's easy to find if you take it logically.

When we're touring America or Europe, we use our own plane and a great advantage of that is it cuts out an awful lot of time checking in. You literally drive up to the plane, get on and then drive off at the other end.

The world is in your hands, now use it.

Genesis fans are a religious group!

It's always been easy with Mark, he's a rock fan and we speak the same language. He's a big Beatles fan too. We worked a lot via CLI calls, though only meeting up once every couple of months.

Find a way to my heart, and I will always be with you.

I am stopping so I can be a full-time father to my two young sons on a daily basis.

That's going to be on my headstone: 'He came. He wrote 'In the Air Tonight.' He ... died.'

I never stopped thinking about the Alamo from that day to this. I'm a huge collector of memorabilia. I've got Davy Crockett's bullet pouch. I've got Colonel Travis's belt.

Often there's a BA crew, because half the time we stay at the same hotels, especially in Australia. I can remember spending quite a lot of time with crews around the pool there. They always make themselves known to us.

When children see Michael Jackson they see a human being. When adults see him they see money.

Many of the articles printed over the last few months have ended up painting a picture of me that is more than a little distorted.

And I would like to marry and have more children. I would like to try and do it right.

In Genesis we saw ourselves as song-writers. After Peter Gabriel left I was the first to say: 'It's OK - we can just do instrumentals.'

I don't really belong to that world and I don't think anyone's going to miss me. I'm much happier just to write myself out of the script entirely.

I grew up in the day when the Beatles sold 1 million singles in a week. And all you've got to do now is sell about 10,000 singles and you're in the charts.

I joined Genesis when I was 19. I've earned the right to actually do nothing. I don't want to be a shadow of what I was, so I've kind of just quite willingly stood back.

Just look over your shoulder...I'll be there always.

I'm sorry that it was all so successful. I honestly didn't mean it to happen like that. It's hardly surprising that people grew to hate me.

Each thing leapfrogs. I do a Genesis project - like now, we're just finishing off an album - and then by the time the album is doing its thing, I could do nothing or I could do a film.

People hate a break-up, but they love a break-up song.

Like last night I had a sequence with a gun and, to be honest, for me to be threatening with a gun and not be comical is quite hard.

Testimony is contingent on experience, that's why we're all free spirits

It's not often that an English drummer gets an Oscar. So I'm very, very proud of that.

When I was five or six, I started dressing up like Davy Crockett.

In learning we teach and in teaching we learn.

Take a look at me now, cause there's just an empty space. And you coming back to me is against all odds and that's what I've got to face.

We're all turkeys! Some of us are running around with our heads cut off, some of us are flapping our wings that hard we're close to flying. But nothing is an eagle bar God ...

You'll regret the day you ever messed with Philadelphia Collins and sons

I've bought pretty much every book ever written about the Alamo, and I talk to my friends that I've made over the past 15, 20 years. It's just a constant learning and fascinating thing for me.

I wanna know, can you show me
I wanna know 'bout these
Strangers Like Me
Tell me more, please show me
Something's familiar 'bout these
Strangers Like Me

I started drumming around the same time I came across this part of American history. But there seemed to be a way forward playing drums. There didn't seem to be a way forward being fascinated by a piece of history.

Yes, I am aware that I have become a caricature. I've thought about this. Conceptually, what I'd like to do is the equivalent of writing myself out of the script.