Randy Newman Quotes

'Rednecks' always made me nervous to play, but I'm glad I wrote it and I continue to play it. It's just that the language is so rough.

Yes, Baby...I've been drinkin'...I shouldn't come by I know...but I found myself in trouble, darlin'...and I have no place else to go. Honey I'm guilty..yes I'm guilty...and I'll be guilty for the rest of my life. How come I never do, what I'm supposed to do. Nothin' I try to do ever turns out right. You know how it is with me baby, I just can't stand myself...it takes a whole lotta medicine, darlin'...for me to pretend that I'm somebody else.

I've written a song for Prince. I never showed it to Prince, but just to see if I could do it. At the time, when I sort of knew him, he was recording a song a day. I wondered if I could do that. So I wrote it.

I once had dinner with Madonna and I wasn't nervous but within about a minute I found myself talking about underwear.

People become who they are. Even Beethoven became Beethoven.

Learn about the world, the way it works, any kind of science and anthropology, it's really an interesting place we live in. Evolution is a really fantastic idea, even more than the idea of God I think.

I am not overlooking any mail. I'm looking at all of it. I even wrote back to the Viagra people.

I've worked with a band, and it's nice to have someone to travel around with, but I didn't like it as well on stage.

I have owned and played a Steinway all my life. It's the best Beethoven piano. The best Chopin piano. And the best Ray Charles piano. I like it, too.

I realized that, instead of moving people closer to a salvation decision, an answer can push them further away. Rather than engaging their minds or urging them to consider an alternative perspective, an answer can give them ammunition for future attacks against the gospel.

Don't forget to bring that little blonde haired girl along. You know the one, love to watch her jump up and down.

I like the idea of taking a true classic written by a true genius and destroying it essentially! I like the idea of bringing it down to earth a bit - and even a bit lower than that.

If getting on the radio was a major motivation, I'd be one of the worst writers of all time. I admire people who do it, and I think it's a nice way to work, but I try to do the best I can and write what I like. I don't worry about it.

I ain't saying that I'm better than you, but maybe I am.

Short people got no reason to live.

I'm pretty proud of my film music in general.

The easiest thing I do is assignment songs. They tell me what they need me to write. I can do that fairly quickly. Writing for an orchestra is difficult. Writing songs [on your own] is most difficult of all. Though [writing for] the orchestra is close.

Still, it's clear that there are lots of people out there who are uncomfortable [about racism]. The Civil War was a long time ago but there are aspects of it that remain unsettled,

I started recording because I was always complaining about the records that I was getting of my songs. At least if I did them and messed them up, I wouldn't have anyone else to blame.

Most of my songs are about insensitivity of some kind.

We don't know our ass from a hole in the ground.

Thank God for the potholes on memory lane.

I seen her with the milkman, riding down the street. When you're through with my baby, milkman, send her home to me.

Crank up the Beach Boys, Baby.

But I don't want to sing everything out of the side of my mouth, I want people to understand what I mean.

I like the performing. And interviews, even. And the stuff that's not sitting in a room by yourself with empty paper. But I never loved writing, to tell you the truth.

Some fools in the desert with nothing to do ... invented me, and they invented you. And other fools keep it all going and growing. Everybody, we're a figment of their imagination ...

This one guy's wife is such a pretty brown thing, that I'm liable to give her a poke or two. Whaddaya think of that?

Who would want to break into [the music business]? It's like a bank that's already been robbed.

I'd like to explain why you fine young men had to be blown apart to defend this mud hole.

What I'm most pleased about is that there's no particular decline. The songs I wrote 40 years ago are no worse and no better - there's a consistency.

You know, they say you can reduce genius to someone who spent 10,000 hours trying to get good at something. I'm not claiming either one of those. I haven't done anything for 10,000 hours but sleep. But you do stuff enough, you get better at it. Usually it's a simple thing like that. Essentially, a brainless endeavor.

The radio is blastin', someone's knockin' at the door. I'm lookin' at my girlfriend, she's passed out on the floor.

College men from L.S.U., went in dumb, come out dumb, too.

It's funny; people get so doctrinaire about music. It should be the last thing you don't have an open mind about.

My music has a high irritation factor. I've always tried to say something. Eccentric lyrics about eccentric people. Often it was a joke. But I would plead guilty on the grounds that I prefer eccentricity to the bland.

Writers have always liked my stuff, pretty much. That's what I wanted - I think my goal wasn't to get rich and famous, necessarily, though I cared about that. I always thought, "Oh, this could be a hit," or "that will sell records." But the first thing I wanted was that people who knew a lot about music, or had taste-making qualities, they would like my stuff. Writers, people like that.

I sit here in this chair, I pour myself some whiskey, and watch my troubles vanish into the air.

God bless the potholes on Memory Lane.

It's very hard to get rich and famous at a young age and handle it well.

We'll have a kid or maybe we'll rent one. He's got to be straight, we don't want a bent one.

I've often written about places that are totally different from anything I know. Sometimes they turn out better.

Mostly, I don't write overtly personal stuff.

I think in most cases, unless you're writing about a character who is garrulous, you say what you've got to say and then get out. Those little conjunctions, those little turnaround words help you do it. That's the way I like to write: I get rid of things rather than add them.

In England, in France, in no other country would a black man have a chance to get elected. There's no two ways about it. Our country [USA] has been better about dealing with immigration and people who are different from each other than any other country in the world, that I know of.

It takes a whole lot of medicine for me to pretend I am somebody else.

I don't remember ever having writer's block. If I sit in there for four hours, I'll usually have something.

Stay away from drugs. They're not worth it. I've tried, but there's none of them that's worth it.

He got drunk last night, kicked Mama down the stairs. But I'm alright, so I don't care.