Backstage Quotes

There is no definitive list of the duties of a stage manager that is applicable to all theaters and staging environments. Regardless of specific duties, however, the stage manager is the individual who accepts responsibility for the smooth running of rehearsals and performances, on stage and backstage. ~ Laurence Sterne

I met Elvis first in Las Vegas. I think I was appearing with Tom Jones and he came backstage to say hello to Tom or we went to his dressing room to say hello. ~ Norm Crosby

I saw a lot of operas from backstage and watched a lot of rehearsals - my parents were singers. ~ Rosamund Pike

EVERYONE JOINS A BAND IN THIS LIFE. You are born into your first one. Your mother plays the lead. She shares the stage with your father and siblings. Or perhaps your father is absent, an empty stool under a spotlight. But he is still a founding member, and if he surfaces one day, you will have to make room for him. As life goes on, you will join other bands, some through friendship, some through romance, some through neighborhoods, school, an army. Maybe you will all dress the same, or laugh at your own private vocabulary. Maybe you will flop on couches backstage, or share a boardroom table, or crowd around a galley inside a ship. But in each band you join, you will play a distinct part, and it will affect you as much as you affect it. And, as is usually the fate with bands, most of them will break up - through distance, differences, divorce, or death. ~ Mitch Albom

The one thing in my contract that they have backstage for me is bananas. And usually my assistant will go and get me chicken broth. ~ Joshua Bell

In the beginning, I thought it would be really glamorous, working in fashion. But it's actually quite hard. You don't even know half the stuff that goes on backstage. ~ Jacquelyn Jablonski

Harry [Shearer] and I had an idea to do a movie about rock 'n' roll from the roadies' perspective, from backstage. Then Meat Loaf came out with a movie called Roadie and we thought, "Oh, we can't do that now." So we kind of discarded the idea. ~ Rob Reiner

My first life fled without a fight and left nothing behind, so I doubt it was a loss worth mourning. A man I don't remember mixed genes with a woman I can't recall, and I was called to the stage. I stumbled through the curtain, squinting into the blinding light of the birth canal, and after a brief and banal performance, I died.
This is the arc of the average life - unexamined, unremarked, unremarkable - and it should have ended there. In simpler times, life was a one-act play, and when it was over we took our bows and caught our roses and enjoyed any applause we earned, then the spotlight faded and we shuffled backstage to nibble crackers in the greenroom of eternity. ~ Isaac Marion

What in backstage happens, it's just unbelieveable! ~ Deyth Banger

When I was a teenager, I continued to visit imaginary places by spending all my free time at our local community theater. Whether I acted in a play or worked backstage, the world of Tennessee Williams or Shakespeare always seemed more real to me than the dreary life of high school. ~ Mary Pope Osborne

Jack stepped onstage dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a T-shirt.
"I'm the handsome Butterboy," Jack announced. "I'm the queen's soul mate. I just don't know it yet because I'm emotionally immature. Sorry, Conner."
Conner was so embarrassed, he sank into his seat and covered his face with his backpack. Trollbella was sporting a wide grin - this was her favorite part of the show. Red struck a theatrical pose with her hands over her heart.
"Be still my heart, for I am in love!" Red announced.
"Now, Peter!" Trollbella whispered.
Peter soared out from backstage and flew in circles over the audience. The children laughed and clapped - they reached up and tried to touch him. Conner was irritated by how much they were enjoying the show.
"Hello, Butterboy!" Red said to Jack. "Would you like to be my king and rule the trolls and goblins with me? Oh, how happy we will be together!"
"Oh boy, that sounds wonderful!" Jack said. "How lucky I am to be loved by such a beautiful and brilliant troll queen. I will never find someone like her ever again - nope, not once, no how, no way, not going to happen! I want to be with Trollbella for all eternity!"
"I never said that!" Conner shouted from his seat. "She's making this up! ~ Chris Colfer

That's what I think musicals will come to. No backstage stories, nothing of that sort. ~ Vincente Minnelli

When I used to do musical theatre, my dad refused to come backstage. He never wanted to see the props up close or the sets up close. He didn't want to see the magic. ~ Nia Vardalos

Waiters are like actors waiting in the wings, bantering whenever we passed each other on the restaurant floor, shouting at each other backstage in the kitchen and winking and corpsing above the heads of our audience, the unsuspecting customers. ~ Richard Eyre

I was a gay kid in high school in the late '90s, and I was in theater club. I was never a thespian. I was much more of a lighting guy or a backstage guy. Because I wanted to do something easy for the rest of my life, I thought, "Maybe I'll go and apply to colleges that specialize in theater set design. I'll do that. That's what I want to do." With theater, really, I'd be around the gays. ~ James Pearse Connelly

And what does he feel?"
"He feels uneasy. A little afaid. Angry. Oddly, a hint of pride."
"Good," Henry said. "ANd where are you?"
"Backstage."
Henry shook his head gravely. "THere's no such thing as backstage. The play begins, and there's only the world it dramatizes. Now, where are you?"
"With my father, the president. In his chambers."
"Right. With me. Your father. And now
this is important
do you love me?"
Nelson considered this; or rather, Nelson, as Alejo, considered this.
"Yes," he said after a moment. "I do."
"Good. Remember that. In every scene
even when you hate me, you also love me. That's why it hurts. Got it?"
Nelson said that he did.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Good. Because it does hurt," Henry said. "DOn't forget that. It's supposed to. Always. ~ Daniel Alarcon

I wasn't trying to write a corrective novel - that would just end up tasting like medicine, and I tried to stay away from polemics as best I could. I think that, if anything, Fobbit is my way of showing readers there's another side to war - the backstage of combat, if you will. If you play a word association game with Americans and say "war," what's the first thing that comes to mind? Soldiers running across a battlefield through a hail of bullets, right? Rambo, smoke, explosions. In Fobbit, I hope readers will see something a little different ~ Dave Abrams

'Breathe In' was such a big deal for me. It was my first anything. Before that, I was going through 'Backstage Magazine' and applying for student films. ~ Mackenzie Davis

A fire broke out backstage in a theatre. The clown came out to warn the public; they thought it was a joke and applauded. He repeated it; the acclaim was even greater. I think that's just how the world will come to an end: to general applause from wits who believe it's a joke. ~ Soren Kierkegaard

If you can't get an acting job, then go backstage. Or take tickets. ~ Ed Asner

We often fully sense and relish the radiance of happiness only after it is has escaped through the backstage door, stealthily and silently. ("Happy days are back again") ~ Erik Pevernagie

Somebody will come backstage and go, 'You saved me.' And I will have to say, 'Stop right there. You saved yourself.' ~ Tori Amos

I'm really clumsy, so I trip and fall a lot. And every time I perform in New York my pants split onstage. That's happened four or five times. Every time, I pull on my mom's jeans as fast as I can, so there we are, standing backstage without our pants on. It's like a curse. ~ Jessica Simpson

All right buddah gets a backstage pass but all his friends have to pay ~ Jim Carroll

It does not matter about the dramas that you involve in outside of you. It only matters about understanding the backstage that is your mind playing within you ~ Srividya Srinivasan

It's such an honor. I still get, I guess, starstruck, at the Opry. Because there's so much history here and there are so many legends that are still walking around backstage, so it's really an incredible, incredible experience for somebody like me that grew up listening to all of them. And to be able to share the stage with them is something that I treasure. ~ Kellie Pickler

And I know that it's probably killing you a little bit to not be down here front and center, or backstage getting everything together. But you're here anyway. In the back in the shadows. Because you're not really here as a dance dad tonight. You're just here as… a dad. ~ Erin Nicholas

The most intimate moments in the world don't happen in nightclubs or backstage or even on the movie screen. They were moments like this: sitting silently, comfortably, holding hands on a darkened bedroom floor. ~ Georgia Clark

And I'd watch George C. Scott from backstage. He was one of my mentors. ~ Jeffrey Tambor

Once we played at the Fillmore opposite The Cream. Eric Clapton was there and he played his ass off that night ... backstage Michael Bloomfield introduced me to Eric, and Eric was so nice. He came up to me, put his arms around me and said "Barry, it's such a pleasure to meet you" ... I couldn't figure it out ... then Michael told me that he had told Eric I had cancer and two months to live ... ~ Barry Goldberg

I didn't know who Langston Hughes was till he met me backstage. ~ Ben Vereen

It started embarrassing me. I began to feel like such a nasty little egomaniac." She reflected. "I don't know. It seemed like such poor taste, sort of, to want to act in the first place. I mean all the ego. And I used to hate myself so, when I was in a play, to be backstage after the play was over. All those egos running around feeling terribly charitable and warm. Kissing everybody and wearing their makeup all over the place, and then trying to be horribly natural and friendly when your friends came backstage to see you. I just hated myself. ~ J.D. Salinger

My dad was a theater actor, so I would follow him backstage. And my mom was a casting director. The moment I heard the applause and realized it would get me out of school, I was hooked. ~ Christian Slater

I had the most expensive haircut you can get, and I was walking around with my hair in rollers backstage, and my hair still came out looking like I was shot out of a cannon and I had just gotten out of bed. ~ Kelly Cutrone

I graduated from Brown in 2001, moved to New York, and spent a year and a half just looking up 'Backstage' magazine auditions and grinding. ~ David Walton

When I was having my hair and make-up done backstage at a fashion show, I would sneak in a copy of Dostoevsky and read it inside a copy of Elle or Vogue. But it would be pretentious of me to say I was more intelligent than the other supermodels. ~ Carla Bruni

On the PBS recording of 'The Light in the Piazza' backstage, you get to see me doing some sweet lunges down the hallway of the Vivian Beaumont. ~ Aaron Lazar

My ideal setting is I walk from the streets, backstage, and straight onto the stage. Two minutes, and I am on the stage. That way, in my head I have gone from my world and then into a social setting with my friends. ~ Trevor Noah

The guitar. Rubbing the gentle polish
On Every smooth contour.
On the lap. Knowing every curve
As the light shines from it.

On stage a planned metamorphosis
Takes places as the hours go by and the
Space is transformed to a concert hall.
The energetic nemesis has struck.

The risers are transformed into a stage
And black boxes turned into powerful
Pieces of sound equipment.
The spring is taut.

Backstage while pandemonium
Sweeps the hall and people
Crowd the arena as ants flow to a cake.

The stage is set, the
Instruments tuned and placed.
The musicians work out last minute
Kinks as the lights dim.

An intense force hits the spectators.
Energy is released in every form.
A power rage beyond comprehension. ~ David Morrell

a couple years prior we were hitchhiking to a gig with no gear. Now we were on a fucking tour bus. We could eat for free at a catered backstage buffet. Life was good. ~ Duff McKagan

In the rock 'n roll slang world, they're called rock doctors, or rock docs. They would come out to shows and like to hang backstage. You could get a prescription for anything you want from them. They just want to hang out and party. It's crazy because you can get a prescription to anything. It doesn't even matter what kind of doctor they are. ~ Reginald Arvizu

Our first stop was London, where there were a few competitions leading up to Blackpool. I had never seen this level of competition before. I was so excited by the energy and the feeling of being around all these amazing dancers. I wasn't overwhelmed, just a little embarrassed. Everyone looked so polished, and they all smelled like fancy cologne. Comparatively, I looked and felt like the poor kid on the block. I didn't own the proper costume (white tie, black jacket, and black trousers), so I'd rented one from a wedding store before we left home. It was baggy in all the wrong places, and I didn't have the right shoes.
Watching the dancers get ready backstage, we realized we were also completely unprepared. They'd put water or castor oil on the floor and rub the soles of their shoes in it. Then they'd scratch the soles with a wire brush, roughening up the suede to prevent slipping. As we stepped out for the first round, Autumn spit in the middle of the dance floor and rubbed her feet in it. She encouraged me to do the same, so I did--hoping that not too many people were watching. I remember thinking, Yeah, we are definitely from out of town. ~ Derek Hough

I walked backstage, standing ovation. Everyone was backstage clapping. ~ The Miz

If you ever see shitty ass rock dudes in shitty ass rock bands asking you to show them your tist for backstage passes, I want you to spit right in their fucking faces and yell 'FUCK YOU! ~ Gerard Way

They read the names out from sixth place to first. We were standing backstage behind a huge curtain, and Rachael and Evgeni were right next to us. Swell. I thought maybe we stood a chance of coming in fourth. But they didn't call us. "This is crazy!" I whispered to Aneta. "We're top three?" Then they called a German couple. We were in the top two!
Rachael smiled at me. "Oh, Derek! Great job!" she said. What she really meant was, "We're going to take first place and you can have our sloppy seconds." Then we heard, "In second place, from England…" Rachael's face went white as a ghost. She and Evgeni were second! That left only one place for us…
"Derek Hough and Aneta Piotrovska are world champions!"
I started screaming, "What? What?" and jumping up and down. So much for my neck pain. This wasn't real; it couldn't be! I ran out from behind the curtain, pumping my fists in the air. I caught a glimpse of Rachael's face. She was beyond pissed.
"We did it! We did it!" I yelled. The rest happened in slow motion: I ran out and jumped off the stage and the floor. While I was midair, I remember thinking, " I'm wearing these Cuban heels. This isn't gonna be good." Then I hit the floor and my legs buckled. I fell into a roll, then stood straight up--as if I meant to do it all along. I limped over to Aneta to collect our trophy and we hugged. I didn't give a crap about anything else. Not my neck or my knees or Rachael fuming as they snapped pictures of all of us. It was ~ Derek Hough

I was like the roadie, I was carrying gear, checking things in at airports, making sure they had flowers backstage and interfacing with promoters who were sometimes really nice and sometimes a little seedy. It was a great apprenticeship, to be in the music industry. ~ Annie E. Clark

I love all insider memoirs. It doesn't matter whether it's truck-drivers or doctors. I think everybody likes to go backstage, find out what people think and what they talk about and what specialised job they have. ~ David Mamet

As for what motivated me, it is quite simple; I would hope that in the eyes of some people it might be sufficient in itself. It was curiosity – the only kind of curiosity, in any case, that is worth acting upon with a degree of obstinacy: not the curiosity that seeks to assimilate what it is proper for one to know, but that which enables one to get free of oneself. After all, what would be the value of the passion for knowledge if it resulted only in a certain amount of knowledgeableness and not, in one way or another and to the extent possible, in the knower's straying afield of himself? There are times in life when the question of knowing if one can think differently that one thinks, and perceive differently than one sees, is absolutely necessary if one is to go on looking and reflecting at all. People will say, perhaps, that these games with oneself would better be left backstage; or, at best, that they might properly form part of those preliminary exercises that are forgotten once they have served their purpose. But, then, what is philosophy today – philosophical activity, I mean – if it is not the critical work that thought brings to bear on itself? In what does it consist, if not in the endeavour to know how and to what extent it might be possible to think differently, instead of legitimating what is already known? ~ Michel Foucault

I think people probably lie about not reading their own reviews. I don't think that's true - I've been to a lot of music festivals and hung out backstage, especially in the past couple of years, and I see all these bands reading about themselves in newspapers. So I don't think that's true. ~ Lily Allen

I was a little nervous backstage. But I had this book, Gandhi. I just read his quotes, closed my eyes and focused my thoughts. Presently, this book is my prized possession. ~ Nafisa Joseph

My junior year, I was in a play at school and five days before opening night, I still didn't know my lines. Opening night was a disaster. I was so embarrassed. The director made me work backstage for the rest of the performance. ~ Katie Leclerc

When I was backstage at Comic-Con, about to go out and do the panel for Thor, and Joss Whedon ran up and introduced himself, I already almost passed out, right then. And then, he said, "I've been meaning to call you. You have a big part in The Avengers. Can we introduce you as part of the cast?" It was pretty Make-A-Wish Foundation. I was pretty sure I was dying and nobody had told me yet. ~ Clark Gregg

I was a microscopic life-form, infinitely large, stumbled backstage of its playhouse, caught a nanosecond glance of its own reality and nearly vaporized in shock. ~ Johann Sebastian Bach

Theater was definitely part of my roots. My father would take me to plays, and then my mother was always on the lookout for other talent and taking me to see plays. I saw Frank Langella in 'Dracula' ... Great, great performances. I was a theater rat, hanging out backstage. ~ Christian Slater

Now, at this point, I can wrestle, I can go out there and cut an entertaining promo, I can also do the backstage stuff ... and if you can contribute more to the show, you have more staying power. ~ Trish Stratus

I was looking at the setlist backstage and I just said, 'Oh my God, the first six songs nobody's gonna know.' But they all knew the lyrics. It just blew me away. ~ Meredith Brooks

I have loved music so much from when I was little, and I don't know whether it was because I saw my dad doing it and then I got the idea; I don't know what came first ... But I always had a hairbrush in the mirror singing. I was always with him backstage; I would go out and be pulled in for the last song. ~ Lisa Marie Presley

Backstage, Willem is thinking about accidents again. And things that seemingly don't make sense, except they do. Like right out there in the fifth row. All of them, together. That makes sense. ~ Gayle Forman

It was 1988, I believe, that I met Grit. We were both appearing in a Canadian Folk Festival and as we sat backstage he handed me his guitar. I played it, loved it, and then found out that he'd made it himself. ~ Tom Chapin

The cultural code of the stiff upper lip is not for her boys. She is teaching them that it is not "sissy" to show their feelings to others. When she took Prince William to watch the German tennis star Steffi Graff win the women's singles final at Wimbledon last year they left the royal box to go backstage and congratulate her on her victory. As Graff walked off court down the dimly lit corridor to the dressing room, royal mother and son thought Steffi looked so alone and vulnerable out of the spotlight. So first Diana, then William gave her a kiss and an affectionate hug.
The way the Princess introduced her boys to her dying friend, Adrian Ward-Jackson, was a practical lesson in seeing the reality of life and death. When Diana told her eldest son that Adrian had died, his instinctive response revealed his maturity. "Now he's out of pain at last and really happy." At the same time the Princess is acutely aware of the added burdens of rearing two boys who are popularly known as "the heir and the spare." Self-discipline is part of the training. Every night at six o'clock the boys sit down and write thank-you notes or letters to friends and family. It is a discipline which Diana's father instilled in her, so much so that if she returns from a dinner party at midnight she will not sleep easily unless she has penned a letter of thanks.
William and Harry, now ten and nearly eight respectively, are now aware of their destiny. On one occasion the boys were discussing their ~ Andrew Morton

One second you're having the time of your life in front of all these people, and then you come backstage to the exact opposite - there's only lukewarm carrots back there. ~ Babatunde Adebimpe

On the opening night of the Hazzard County High School production of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Buster was going to play Romeo. His sister, Annie, was to play Juliet. Other than Buster, no one backstage seemed to understand that this was a problem. "Let me ask you something, Buster," said Mr. Delano, the high school drama teacher. "Have you heard of the phrase the show must go on?" Buster nodded. "Well," Mr. Delano continued, "this is the kind of moment for which that phrase was coined. ~ Kevin Wilson

I grew up around backstage, and that clinched it for me. ~ Zak Orth

We were playing a small club in San Diego and the power had gone out in the building. Eddie had a lighter and kept us lit backstage. We became very good friends and spent a lot of time together including hearing Eddie sing in some of the bands he was in at the time. ~ Jack Irons

This is from "Marabou Stork Nightmares".
Bernard's Poem:

Did you see her on the telly the other day
good family entertainment the tabloids say

But when you're backstage
at your new faeces audition
you hear the same old shite of your own selfish volition

She was never a singer
a comic or a dancer
I cant say I was sad
when I found out she had cancer

Great Britain's earthy northern
comedy queen
takes the rand, understand
from the racist Boer regime

So now her cells are fucked
and thats just tough titty
I remember her act
that I caught back in Sun City

She went on and on about
'them from the trees
with different skull shapes
from the likes of you and me'

Her Neo-Nazi spell
it left me fucking numb
the Boers lapped it up with zeal
so did the British ex-pat scum

But what goes round
comes round they say
so welcome to another dose
of chemotherapy

And for my part
it's time to be upfront
so fuck off and die
you carcinogenic cunt. ~ Irvine Welsh

Most women can't handle the reality of what comes with being with me. It takes a very secure woman to be backstage at a concert hearing 15,000 females going crazy. ~ Tyrese Gibson

This time he was dreaming of a VIP room backstage at the club, filled with champagne and coffee, a gaggle of groupies trying to break down the door so that - in the dream, Simon somehow knew this was their intent - they could tear of his clothes and ravish him. ~ Cassandra Clare

One of my earliest memories is being backstage at 'Bran Nue Dae' in Darwin when I was about eight. It's such a fun, happy show and a real celebration of being Aboriginal ... it felt really great and achievable as a career. It all felt normal. ~ Shari Sebbens

Ayden and I clapped our hands over our ears when the shrieking started.
"Yes. I can see that you're enthused," Jayden tried to speak over the girls' squealing, "but you need - "
Danica snatched the backstage passes from Jayden. "No way!"
"Uh, yes. Way?" Jayden said. ~ A&E Kirk

In post-Vietnam, post-Watergate America, skeptical voters demand full disclosure of everything from candidates' finances to their medical records, and spin-savvy accounts of backstage machinations dominate political coverage. ~ Virginia Postrel

I'd always wondered why there had been no mention of psychopaths in the DSM. It turned out, Spitzer told me, that there had indeed been a backstage schism - between Bob Hare and a sociologist named Lee Robins. She believed clinicians couldn't reliably measure personality traits like empathy. She proposed dropping them from the DSM checklist and going only for overt symptoms. Bob vehemently disagreed, the DSM committee sided with Lee Robins, and Psychopathy was abandoned for Antisocial Personality Disorder. ~ Jon Ronson

One of the things I noticed when I worked at Vibe was that backstage at a fashion show, they always referred to the black models as "black girls." I thought, "They never say 'white girls.'. ~ Hilton Als

No, let's make this interesting. If I win, we have sex backstage tonight. If you win, we have sex backstage tonight."
I wanted to laugh again, but the way he said sex froze my brain for a second. "Um ... I don't think you understand how betting works."
Moving in close to me, he breathed his response into my ear while he rested his hand on my stomach. "Don't I? ~ S.C. Stephens

The majority of celebrities that come to the show actually don't come backstage. Because they don't know that they can. ~ Andrew Rannells

It happened that a fire broke out backstage in a theater. The clown came out to inform the public. They thought it was a jest and applauded. He repeated his warning. They shouted even louder. So I think the world will come to an end amid the general applause from all the wits who believe that it is a joke. ~ Soren Kierkegaard

In America, celebrities who go to see your show will come backstage and introduce themselves. Meeting Annette Bening and Ethan Hawke that way was amazing, but when Tom Hanks came, it was really special - I've loved him since I first saw him in 'Big!' ~ Tom Riley

We can at least go backstage where it's cool and get rest, but the fans have to stay and watch in the heat. It's not me mom ... it's the fans who have it hard. ~ Kim Tae-yeon

I get starstruck really easily. I love music so much - it sounds so silly to say that - so if I'm playing a festival and somebody I love, like [Primal Scream's] Bobby Gillespie, is there in the backstage area, I'm like, "Wow this is amazing! There they are!" ~ Dee Dee Ramone

When the show opens, fans can text to a number we flash up on the screen, and then we do a meet-and-greet with 60 to 80 people every night. It's something I love doing, and I would say that's probably more fans than most artists bring backstage after a show. ~ Luke Bryan

I would urge a young player to listen to Charlie Christians' sense of time ... I'll never forget listening to my father (Bucky Pizzarelli) and Tal Farlow playing Christians' 'Solo Flight' backstage at a gig ... that's when it hit me how big of an effect Christian had on jazz guitar. 'Solo Flight' was like the gospel ... ~ John Pizzarelli

I'm always excited about my upcoming shows. I love what I do; I feel very lucky to be able to do what I do, and I never get tired of it. Every time I'm backstage before a show and I feel the murmur of the crowd, it's just incredibly exciting. And I consider myself very fortunate to be able to do this for a job. It's a great life. ~ Brian Regan

I have always wanted to work in the theater. I've always felt the glamour of being backstage and that excitement, but I've never actually done it - not since I was in 5th grade, really. But I've had many plays in my films. I feel like maybe theater is a part of my movie work. ~ Wes Anderson

..the power outage caused the stage manager to drop the curtain - much to the surprise of Ronnie Wood, who was standing directly underneath it at the time and was almost killed by about half a ton of falling velvet (because, let me tell you, in those days a curtain was a curtain.) It was while we were backstage, getting the power restored, that I noticed I had spent the entire opening number with my flies undone. ~ Rod Stewart

Thousands of miles away, in a crowded theater that thunders with applause for the man onstage, hidden in the shadows formed between disused pieces of scenery backstage, Celia Bowen curls herself into a ball and cries. ~ Erin Morgenstern

The designers usually don't like to say until we're on the runway. Like when I did Prada last year, I couldn't mention doing Prada or even Tweet or take a picture and put it on Twitter saying I was backstage at the Prada show. And Dolce was the same thing. They like to keep a little surprise, I guess, a little secret for everybody. ~ Alessandra Ambrosio

I spent 25 years clearly understanding that I'm not gonna meet Bono or the Edge. But then it happened at the Grammys when we were all backstage and I just about fell out of my shoes. ~ Kristian Bush

I live on a boat two months out of the year, and if I did not have that then I don't know how I'd be able to handle all this ... I am a very intense person on stage. I have to remember why I am there, what I am doing. You can spend all day backstage preparing for the show and lose sight of why you are doing this. Off stage, I am a very simple kind of guy. I live my life in flip-flops. ~ Kenny Chesney

Technicality," Shiro said. "The cigars?" "My Christianity," Shiro said. "When I was a boy, I liked Elvis. Had a chance to see him in concert when we moved to California. It was a big revival meeting. There was Elvis and then a speaker and my English was not so good. He invited people backstage to meet the king. Thought he meant Elvis, so I go backstage." He sighed. "Found out later I had become a Baptist." I barked out a laugh. "You're kidding." "No. But it was done, so I tried not to be too bad at being Baptist. ~ Jim Butcher

Keith Richards I remember. There was a horse backstage that week, and I was in my dressing area and I saw Keith Richards go up, hold the horse's face in his hands, and go, "You're a fine horse, aren't you?" I'll never forget that. ~ Tom Shales

When we lived in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, my sister and I did a local play. My whole family got involved. My mom did the makeup. My sister and I were being homeschooled, and my parents wanted us to be socialized. We had a lot of fun with the other kids hanging out backstage. ~ Danielle Panabaker

Like the time I threw out Pete Murphy of Bauhaus for saying those six immortal words to Slim when he'd forgotten his backstage pass: 'Don't you know who I am?'
'Ha, ha, yeah, I do,' I said, 'You're out, arsehole'. ~ Peter Hook

You had to see him [Marco Rubio] backstage. He was putting on make up with a trowel. ~ Donald Trump

You're gonna be going to rock shows for the rest of your natural life right ladies?. You're gonna see sleezy ass rockbands. They're gonna come up to you and ask you, to show your tits for a backstage pass. You know what I want you to fucking do? I want you to spit right in their FUCKING FACE. ~ Gerard Way

(Talks about her grandmother Marjorie Finlay)She was actually a recording star in Puerto Rico when my mom was growing up. My mom was always stuck sitting backstage somewhere or sitting in a front row, watching a performance her entire childhood. She thought that when her mom stopped performing she was relieved of those duties, but all I wanted to do was sing, ever since I was born, so she's always been backstage. ~ Taylor Swift

I had a brief theater background and loved the backstage world there's more backstage work in television, so I saw a job advertised and applied, and got it. That was back in 1977, when getting jobs was easy. ~ Lee Child

While the sound mixing was underway, Bonzo was on the loose, taking care of buisness his own way. One night he showed up backstage at a Deep Purple concert at the Nassau Coliseum on Long Island. Bonzo was drunk and in very high spirits, and was wobbling on his feet in the wings when he noticed a free microphone during a lull in the music. Staggering forward, Bonzo walked out onto the stage before the Deep Purple roadies could grab him. The group stopped playing, amazed, as Bonzo grabbed the mike and shouted, 'My name is John Bonham of Led Zeppelin, and I just wanna tell ya that we got a new album comin' out and that it's fuckin' great!!' Then Bonzo turned to leave, but before he went he turned back and gratuitously insulted Deep Purple's guitarist. 'And as far as Tommy Bolin is concerned, he can't play for shit!! ~ Stephen Davis

Judy Garland's father was gay. That seems to be the consensus. They left Minnesota and went to California because he got caught with some boy backstage. ~ Judy Davis

Supergroupies don't have to hang around hotel corridors. When you are one, as I have been, you get invited backstage. ~ Germaine Greer

It's quite rare that you find models taken care of backstage. ~ Abbey Lee Kershaw

At one point in the mid-Eighties I shared a promoter with the Smiths. One night, we were sitting backstage when Morrissey burst in, utterly distraught, sobbing his heart out. Turns out someone had thrown a sausage at him on stage during 'Meat Is Murder.' ~ Paul Merton