Top 40 Quotes

When I was in top 40 bands, I always had to learn new material and new styles. ~ Kenneth Edmonds

That the north star is the brightest in the night sky. I'd guess about 9 out of 10 people think this. But it does not require a grant from the National Science Foundation to learn the answer. The North Star is not even in the top 40 in the night sky. It's the 49th brightest star. Rather dull and boring by most measures. ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson

I love Top 40 pop, don't get me wrong; I just don't think that there's anyone in Top 40 pop that's 'real.' ~ Lorde

I listen to all kinds of music, but I've always been a really big fan of Top 40 radio. If I'm in my car, that's what I listen to. ~ Aaron Tveit

The latest Congressional Budget Office figures show that the top 1 percent of income earners in the United States paid 39 percent of federal income taxes while earning 18 percent of pretax income and the top 5 percent of income earners paid 61 percent of federal income taxes while earning 31 percent of pretax income. Indeed, the top 40 percent of income earners paid 99.4 percent of federal income taxes. The bottom 40 percent of income earners paid no federal income tax and received 3.8 percent from the tax system. And the middle 20 percent of income earners pay only 4.4 percent of federal income taxes.3 ~ Mark R. Levin

I was still in and out of consciousness so much, and so emotional. But there were little things that helped. I remember at one point hearing my dad say, "He likes music. I am going to put on some music." He brought in a little red radio and left it on this Top 40 station all the time hoping to cheer me up. Top 40 stations play the same songs over and over again. At the time there was one song that stood out and struck a chord with me: Sheryl Crow's "Good is Good." I don't know what Sheryl Crow's intentions were when she wrote it, but I felt like she was singing to me directly.
I really related to this song. The words would bounce around my head even when I was asleep, about things going south and that it was up to you to make it better. Things are only as good as you make them. I felt calmer and comforted every time I heard it. ~ Noah Galloway

Maybe it's because One Direction was just on 'SNL,' or because I'm playing The Wanted on my Top 40 show, but in terms of boy bands, we're seeing this resurgence, and it's happening, whether you like it or not! ~ Carson Daly

I don't think that I'm a top 40 artist in any way. So I don't think I'm that mainstream. ~ Lisa Marie Presley

Super casual music listeners. That's most of the people in the world. And you have to understand, that's why Top 40 radio exists. It's not there for people who seek out music and who love music. ~ Michael Stipe

'American Top 40' allowed me to be current without my having to force change to keep up with things. The new songs kept us up to date, so every show sounded fresh. ~ Casey Kasem

I credit God with giving me the idea for 'Top 40.' ~ Casey Kasem

The Top 40 is geared toward 20 and under, not 20 and up. That's the audience I'm geared to. ~ Michael Bolton

I was holding someone captive and all that was going through my mind was a Billboard Top 40 love song. I was going to hell. ~ Goldy Moldavsky

We fight our way through the massed and leveled collective safe taste of the Top 40, just looking for a little something we can call our own. But when we find it and jam the radio to hear it again it isn't just ours
it is a link to thousands of others who are sharing it with us. As a matter of a single song this might mean very little; as culture, as a way of life, you can't beat it. ~ Greil Marcus

The very first hit factory was T.B. Harms, a Tin Pan Alley publishing company overseen by Max Dreyfus. With staff writers like Jerome Kern, George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Richard Rodgers, T.B. Harms was the dominant publisher of popular music in the early twentieth century. Dreyfus called his writers "the boys" and installed pianos for them to compose on around the office on West Twenty-Eighth, the street that gave Tin Pan Alley its name, allegedly for the tinny-sounding pianos passersby heard from the upper-story windows of the row houses. The sheet-music sellers also employed piano players in their street-level stores, who would perform the Top 40 of the 1920s for browsing customers. ~ John Seabrook

I would say that everyone that you see who is successful in the mainstream, at the top of Billboard, who has a Top 40 hit ... at some point, unless they're a complete fabrication of the industry with no identity of their own and a carbon copy clone of someone else, they in themselves started out being underground. ~ Immortal Technique

the man with one hand turned on an enormous radio and tuned it to a mastermix station where the songs are not sung so much as bleated. Bleated and repeated. ~ David Sedaris

The listener has a responsibility that not everyone wants to take, especially if you are putting on the new Top 40 record. ~ Taylor Ho Bynum

I want to go back to the format that radio started with rock n' roll, with country artists and rhythm and blues with that oldies type feeling. I want to put it all together and create a Top 40 of rhythm and blues and country and straight blues with Wolfman at the reins. ~ Wolfman Jack

My mom was a folk singer and Celtic harpist. My dad was in a barbershop quartet and my great grandma was an opera singer. As I grew up, I discovered pop music and Top 40 radio, but it was in the '90s, so music was very different then - it was really lyrical. ~ Skylar Grey

Sergeant Pepper was dead. G.I. Joe lived on. George Bush was president, movies stars were dying from AIDS, kids were smoking crack in the ghettos and the suburbs, Muslims were blowing airliners from the skies, rap music ruled, and nobody cared much about the Movement anymore. It was a dry and dusty thing, like the air in the graves of Hendrix, Joplin, and God. She was letting her thoughts take her into treacherous territory, and the thoughts threatened her smiley face. She stopped thinking about the dead heroes, the burning breed who made the bombs full of roofing nails and planted them in corporate boardrooms and National Guard Armories. She stopped thinking before the awful sadness crushed her.

The sixties were dead. The survivors limped on, growing suits and neckties and potbellies, going bald and telling their children not to listen to that satanic heavy metal. The clock of the Age of Aquarius had turned, hippies and yippies had become preppies and yuppies. The Chicago Seven were old men. The Black Panthers had turned gray. The Grateful Dead were on MTV, and the Airplane had become a Top-40 Starship.

Mary Terror closed her eyes, and thought she heard the noise of wind whistling through the ruins. ~ Robert R. McCammon

In some circles, admitting you love Top 40 radio is tantamount to bragging you gave your grandmother the clap, in church, in the front row at your aunt's funeral, but those are the circles I avoid like the plague or, for that matter, the clap. ~ Rob Sheffield

I'm a businesswoman. I am a music lover. I like for people to like my music. When you listen to top 40 radio, you hear pop stuff. You hear rock stuff. You hear all these different influences. ~ Lee Ann Womack

Right now I'm listening to a lot of Top 40 music, because THAT'S MY JOB. ~ Al Yankovic

I had always sung in my dad's shop. I worked there after school, and I'd be singing along with the top-40 records of the day. ~ Neil Diamond

You can get in a car in Maine and drive all the way to California and hear the same Top 40 songs on the same chain broadcasters," bemoaned the report. ~ John Seabrook

Why's it okay to draw spaceships if you're seven, but not okay to draw diabolical mazes? Who decides that spending money on Space Invaders is fine, but if you buy a calculator with loads of symbols you're asking to be picked on? Why's it okay to listen to the Top 40 on Radio 1 but not okay to listen to stations in other languages? ~ David Mitchell

You couldnt get a job playing in a club unless you played so much Top 40 and so many Beatles songs. I just went into a sort of revolt. ~ Gregg Allman

I feel like I'm doing something in Atlanta that nobody ever did as far as rap. If it happens to end up on the top 40 or the pop charts, it doesn't mean I meant to go pop. It's just where the music took me. It started at the bottom, and it rises. ~ Nayvadius Cash

I listen to all sorts of things. I get kind of embarrassed with my iPod, because I am a top-40 type of girl; I am not the kind of person to introduce people to new music. ~ Chrissy Teigen

I just felt it was my job to show that there is no easy way to success, and that anyone who gets even just one Top 40 hit deserves their moment in the sun. I accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative. That is the timeless thing. ~ Casey Kasem

I'm a Top 40 record guy. I remember the hits and don't remember the flops. Something in my brain blocks them out. ~ Steve Cropper

When I play live in restaurants and cafes, I don't play my own stuff. I play jazz and 'American Songbook' standards, and I'll fuse it with top 40. ~ Darren Criss

In the Top 40, half the songs are secret messages to the teen world to drop out, turn on, and groove with the chemicals and light shows at discotheques. ~ Art Linkletter

He is still my father. He is still a person I know I could trust and he would never do anything against me. Once you're at the top, there are not many people like that. People always want something from you. ~ Martina Hingis

Wa-wa-wa watch bikinis no top. See my sex sex sex sexy bikinis would drop. Tic-tac-toe don't play me I'll stop. Tonight I will make you mine. ~ Alexandra Stan

Getting to the top is not so easy; staying there is more difficult. ~ Husnu Ozyegin

Don't dumb down; always write for your top five percent of readers. ~ Martin Amis

She suddenly began to jump up and down, screaming at the top of her lungs. "The arks are after me! The arks are after me! Help me, the arks are after me!"
...
"The arks! You don't understand, I have the ring and the arks are after me!"
...
(and so the police officer is puzzled long enough for Miriam and Seth to escape) ~ Ted Dekker

Nobody wants to see a bejeweled pregnant lady from top to bottom. ~ Busy Philipps

Spare me. You don't kiss period. But look at you. My, my, my. Aside from your bashed up face, you're glowing. I haven't seen you look happy in years." Taddy studied her from top to bottom. "He slammed your pussy, didn't he?" Taddy gunned for an answer. "The longtime Miss Prudence of Prudeville, my frigid friend, the "Big Apple
Starved for Sex" got her McIntosh plucked. Or should I say fucked and made into apple sauce. ~ Avery Aster

Logan watched her speak. Her voice was the same, but her mouth was different. Why had Logan never noticed her mouth before? Her bottom lip was fuller, but the top lip was shaped like a little bow, and he couldn't decide which lip he liked more. He knew he was going to have to do a lot more looking in order to choose. And it suddenly felt imperative that Logan choose very, very well. ~ Ally Carter

I nodded at him and walked quickly along the path, like I was late to a meeting or something. Totally natural. People were probably always hurrying off to important meetings on the top of Italian hills. ~ Jenna Evans Welch

Research conducted by the Corporation for Supportive Housing in New York State shows that the use of state prisons and city jails dropped by 74 percent and 40 percent respectively when people with past criminal records were provided with supportive housing. ~ Michelle Alexander

The fights begin. We're into it ironically at first, but then start genuinely having fun trying to top each other yelling stuff. We get looks, but so what?
"Make him feel like every day is Monday!" Delia shouts.
"Embarrass him in front of everyone he's ever loved!" I shout.
"Dip your hands in his blood!" Delia shouts.
"Send him back to school to get his degree in computer science!" I shout.
"Show him how angry you are that stuff that's supposed to smell like green tea doesn't smell like green tea!" Delia shouts.
"Okay, that one was a stretch," I say. ~ Jeff Zentner

For 40 hours a week competition is awfully stiff but after that there's very little competition . ~ Zig Ziglar

So let's hear another one of your irrational fears.
Mia grasped me by the arms and pulled herself in to my chest, like she was burrowing her body into mine. "I'm scared of losing you," she said in the faintest of voices."
I pushed her away so I could see her face and kissed the top of her forehead. "I said 'irrational' fears. Because that's not gonna happen. ~ Gayle Forman

I like you pretty okay as you are," Rusty conceded. "I remember when you were just Angie's friend who I vaguely thought might be high on cough syrup all the time. But then I saw how you were with Angela, and what you meant to her. I saw your home, the warmth of it, how different it was from mine, how much I wanted a home like that for Angela. I loved you, and the thought of all that came with you. I wanted to make that love mean something. For the first time in my life, I wanted to do something, and I wanted what I did to matter. I wanted to take what I felt for you and build something beautiful."

Kami glanced nervously up at his face.

"That's, um, that means a lot to me, but you have to know I'm not looking to settle down and build a home with anyone until my mid-thirties, if ever, because I am going to be pursuing my career as a hard-hitting reporter."

Rusty smacked her lightly on the top of her head. "You were a beautiful dream to me, you brat; please cease inserting your unpleasant and hurtful reality into my dream. It was the kind of dream that's not supposed to come true. It was the kind of dream that does something else. It taught me who I wanted to be. ~ Sarah Rees Brennan

When you can identify a specific tax that people don't like, and this is one that was designed for the Rockefellers, for the Carnegies in 1916, to fund World War I, but now it's beginning to hit small business people, real estate holders, a lot of people well down the income scale who just spent a life building assets. Suddenly they get hit with a 40%, 50% tax rate. ~ Paul Gigot

Sport teaches you about commitment and to dedicate yourself. Whether you make it to the top or not, sport gives you great skills that you can use in life. ~ Jenny Meadows

If you hit a midget on the head with a stick, he turns into 40 gold coins. ~ Patton Oswalt

There's a good chance that in 40 years, after the floods, people zipping by on scavenged jetpacks with their scavenged baseball caps on backwards, I will be in my rocking chair saying bitterly, 'I remember when 'all right' was two words.' ~ Elizabeth McCracken

It's this or a short hospital stay," she said, greeting Scarlett with a raised glass of a deep red liquid with a celery stalk sticking out of the top. "Bloody Marys are one of the truly medicinal cocktails. The only way I can beat this jet lag is by staying up all day, and this is going to keep me alive. And who is this?"
This was directed at Marlene, who was stalking along behind Scarlett like a wet cat. ~ Maureen Johnson

November 18, 2014: it's a day that should live forever in history. On that day, in the city of Yiwu in China's Zhejiang province, 300 kilometers south of Shanghai, the first train carrying 82 containers of export goods weighing more than 1,000 tons left a massive warehouse complex heading for Madrid. It arrived on December 9th. Welcome to the new trans-Eurasia choo-choo train. At over 13,000 kilometers, it will regularly traverse the longest freight train route in the world, 40% farther than the legendary Trans-Siberian Railway. Its cargo will cross China from East to West, then Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Germany, France, and finally Spain. ~ Anonymous

I'm not a very serious Jew. I don't wear the protective religious headgear. They only wear that because 40% of all religious thoughts escape through the head. ~ Jon Stewart

He turned her ninety degrees. "To get back to the ranger station and your car, you want to go southwest," he said.

Right. She knew that, and she stalked off in the correct direction.

"Watch out for bears," Matt called after her.

"Yeah, okay," she muttered, "and I'll also keep an eye out for the Tooth Fairy."

"Three o'clock."

Amy craned her neck and froze. Oh sweet baby Jesus, there really was a bear at three o'clock. Enjoying the last of the sun, he was big, brown and shaggy, and big. He lay flat on his back, his huge paws in the air as he stretched, confident that he sat at the top of the food chain. "Holy shit," she whispered, every Discovery Channel bear mauling she'd ever seen flashing in her mind. She backed up a step, and then another, until she bumped into a brick wall and nearly screamed.

"Just a brown bear," said the brick wall that was Matt. ~ Jill Shalvis

Sensory experience should not be draped on top of the story as sort of a last-minute decoration. Done right, it is woven into the fabric of the story, and as this happens, the reader is woven in, right alongside the description. In giving advice to writers, E. L. Doctorow once said that good writing should communicate more than the mere fact that it is raining. The reader should feel rained on. A ~ Douglas Wilson

I'm a straight lady, the best in Hollywood. There is an art to playing the straight role. You must build up your man, but never top him, never steal the laughs. ~ Margaret Dumont

His eyes they held the most dangerous thing, they held the top of the sins. Indifference. Indifference. A vacancy where human care should be. ~ Nina MacLaughlin

Good news! My accountant has just informed me that by imparting all these Top-Secret Hollywood Secrets to you, I've now saved you at least one zillion American dollars! ~ Lauren Graham

Here's one problem with drifting: you can't drift your way to the top of the mountain. ~ Jim Rohn

Top doctors, I have come to believe, are as big a menace to your health as top money managers are to your bank account. They are almost never available to talk to. ~ Tina Brown

The literary publishers were the Lords of Culture, the master parasites sitting on top of this swarming dunghill. ~ Jonathan Galassi

Asking an eight-year-old girl if something is a little over-the-top is like asking a Texan if there are too many jalapenos in the salsa. The answer is always no. -Liberty Jones ~ Lisa Kleypas

Somewhere at the top of the pyramid in the invisible government are a few sinister people who know exactly what they are doing: They want America to become part of a worldwide socialist dictatorship ... ~ Dan Smoot

Shut one eye then the other
Peek into every corner of yourself
See that there are no nails no thieves
See that there are no cuckoo's eggs

Shut then the other eye
Squat and jump
Jump high high high
On top of yourself

Fall then with all your weight
Fall for days on end deep deep deep
To the bottom of your abyss

Who doesn't break into pieces
Who remains whole gets up whole
Plays ~ Vasko Popa

What was shocking were the rewards my father's cousins had gathered in the intervening couple of decades. They farmed now on thousands of acres, not hundreds. They drove fancy pickup trucks, owned lakefront property and second homes. A simple Internet search offered the truth of where their riches had come from: good ol' Uncle Sam. Recently I clicked again on a database of farm subsidy payments, and found that five of my father's first cousins had been paid, all told, $3 million between 1995 and 2005 - and that on top of whatever they'd earned outright for the sale of their corn and soybeans. They worked hard, certainly. They'd saved and scrimped through the lean years. They were good and honorable yeoman, and now they'd come through to their great reward: a prime place at the trough of the welfare state. All that corn syrup guzzled down the gullets of America's overweight children, all that beef inefficiently fattened on cheap feed, all that ethanol being distilled in heartland refineries: all of it underwritten by as wasteful a government program as now exists this side of the defense industry. In the last ten years, the federal government has paid $131 million in subsidies and disaster insurance in just the county [in Minnesota] where I grew up. Corn is subsidized to keep it cheap, and the subsidies encourage overproduction, which encourages a scramble for ever more ways to use corn, and thus bigger subsidies - the perfect feedback loop of government welfare. ~ Philip Connors

I'm happy to belong to this group of top champions having excelled here. ~ Hermann Maier

Lying on top of a building, the clouds looked no nearer than when I was lying on the street. ~ Liam Gillick

Email is a 40-year-old technology that is not going away for very good reasons - it's the cockroach of the Internet. ~ Jason Hirschhorn

I'm not saying Abbott Computing Services suffered from an acute form of TV demographics, but, how did I get the job? I wasn't under 40. I wasn't anorexic slim. I didn't have a face that would launch a thousand ships, or even a rowboat. Of course, I was a temp, and the young and beautiful wouldn't have to look at me forever." Jo Durbin ~ Norma Huss