Rufus Wainwright Quotations

Life is a game and true love is a trophy.

I still believe that love is the most powerful force in the world, even though I am yet to experience it fully.

Crazy as it sounds, I'm a believer in destiny and serendipity, and I have had cosmic experiences all my life. Something told me I was meant for greater stuff. And look, I've had a baby! And I've written an opera!

I've developed into quite a swan. I'm one of those people that will probably look better and better as I get older until I drop dead of beauty.

My love of maple syrup. I've been known to knock back a can over a couple days: A swig here, a swig there, and next thing you know it's gone. It's a habit I have to stave off. I don't want to lose all my teeth.

Why be in music, why write songs, if you can't use them to explore life or an idealized vision of life?

I believe a lot of our lives are spent asleep, and what I've been trying to do is hold on to those moments when a little spark cuts through the fog and nudges you.

My cheeks explode when I smile. Thats why I have to look so nonplussed.

I think the minute you mention death, people run for the hills - unless it's heavy metal. People do not like death.

When it came to using elements of your personal life in your work, my mother was the master, or the mistress. There were three or four songs she wrote about my father - songs about failed love.

Being uncool is being pretty much the coolest you can be.

For me, the iPhone is harder than reading Faust.

I have managed to eke out a good and substantial existence. I'm not shoveling gold bricks or anything, but I do very, very well.

You know the question: 'How do you get to Carnegie Hall?' Answer: 'Practise?' Well, in my case, I got there by not practising. I didn't finish my music degree. And when I got into the pop world, I decided not to conform because I figured that the point of being an artist was that you shouldn't be like anyone else.

In the music business, to survive for so long, you have to be able to cut off from your emotions sometimes. And being a father, you're faced with that situation. I know that my father was, with me. I understand why he had to be distant, because to rip yourself away, time after time, is almost more devastating.

In the present world, this technological, psychotic, politicised, nonsensical world, you have to believe that the good guys are going to win! That evil will be banished somehow!

I could always escape into this demi-monde of homosexuality, which I feel really indebted to. It stopped me being a 'mummy's boy.'

The Germany I was enthused with was more old fashioned and kind of romantic. I just got there, and the next thing you know, I had this huge gilded album. It was kind of an amazing experience because I didn't intend it to be that way.

I think we could all be a bit more elitist.

Some people go to Berlin to get more cutting edge; I went and started wearing lederhosen and going to visit baroque palaces.

There's no life without humour. It can make the wonderful moments of life truly glorious, and it can make tragic moments bearable.

I'm definitely a fan of juxtaposition. Using the most beautiful line to say the most horrific thing - I think one of the main things in songwriting is definitely friction between the words and the melody.

I'm a big fan of the Pre-Raphaelites. Millais, Edward Burne-Jones, and I realised recently that my music is Pre-Raphaelite in a certain way, in that it reinvents an older era and romanticises it, puts it in this gilded frame.

I'm hyper light-sensitive and must sleep in the equivalent of a sealed tomb.

I've paid the price; I definitely have a reputation that precedes me, and there is a camp that plots my demise. But then again... it's funner that way.

We made a pact to light up and then we were whisked away,

Dinner at eight was okaybefore the toast full of gleams.It was great until those old magazinesgot us started up again.Actually it was probably me again.

I really do fear that I'm dying I really do fear that I'm dead I saw it in your eyes what I'm looking for I saw it in your eyes what will make me live.

Musically I'm able to keep going, because it's not about money and it's not about success. It's a challenge.

I am always writing; if you want to survive in this business, you need to keep working, keep creating and never stop the output.

Being with the president's daughter, no matter who the president is, you are connected to the most powerful political force on earth, and that's scary. And when you mix crystal meth and alcohol with that, it's...kind of exciting. A little too exciting.

I like to make the mundane fabulous whenever I can.

All humans realize they are loved when witnessing the dawn; early morning is the triumph of good over evil. Absolved by light we decide to go on.

Faith is a bluebird you see from afar, it's for real and as sure as the first evening star. You can't touch it or buy it or wrap it up tight, but it's there all the same, making things turn out right.

My greatest experiences in the theatre and the most religious experiences in my life - of which going to the opera is one for me - have been with the Romantic composers' repertoire: it's Wagner, it's Strauss, Verdi, Puccini. That era gets me every time.

I really need to know I may just never see you again, or might as well You took advantage of a world that loved you well I'm going to a town that has already been burnt down I'm so tired of you, America.

These are just the rules and regulations Of the birds, and the bees The earth, and the trees, Not to mention the gods, not to mention the gods.

Guess the world needs both sun And the moon too Sad with what I have except for you.

When I was young, my mother [folk singer Kate McGarrigle] brought home this recording of Verdi's Requiem and we listened to it from top to bottom. By the end of it, I was a completely different person. It was literally a requiem mass for my former self. I was about 12 or 13. The Requiem just totally hooked into what I was going through emotionally - discovering my sexuality right at the time when AIDS was devastating my community and dealing with intense parental situations.

And I am left behind Corrupted crushed and blind All for a dream That in truth was never really mine.

I believe in freedom Freedom's apparently all I need But who's ever been free in this world? Who has never had to bleed in this world?

One day you will come to Montauk and see your dad playing the piano And see your other dad wearing glasses Hope that you will want to stay for a while Don't worry I know you'll have to go

Climate change has always been sort of my main focus. I think also with [what happened in Fukushima, Japan] there's still a lot to think about in terms of what's coming down the pike into the world's oceans, too.

Somebody curse the light And take me far away from myself

Writing an opera and premiering in England, you could say I was going right into the eye of the storm and I came out successfully. A little tattered and bruised, but so what, I made it.

Madonna created a monster that sucks up souls.

I'd be hanging out in my bathrobe all day, stinky, just writing, and my mom allowed me to do this-as long as I was writing songs. She said, 'As long as you're seriously working on music, I'll support you. Don't get a job, because if you work, it will crush you.

Once you've fallen from classical virtue, won't have a soul for to wake up and hold you.

The mind has so many pictures Why can't I sleep with my eyes open? The mind has so many memories Can you remember what it looks like when I cry? I'm trying, trying to tell you All that I can in a sweet and velvet tongue But no words ever could sell you Sell you on me after all that I have done.

I strive for what you do find in Shakespeare's work - that there is a definite humanity and a definite character behind the writing in the sonnets, and it's very real because it's so deeply personal. I try to aspire to that in what I do.

Every video I do is over budget by the time I walk on set. I am massively extravagant in my personal habits.

I am ridiculously high-maintenance.

Certainly in terms of my life - anybody's life - you go through death, childbirth and marriage, glory and defeat, and so on.

I bemoan the fact that all my famous friends have places in St. Bart's and I have to go to Montauk.

I definitely have a Luddite's approach to what's going on. I find that as I get older, I get stupider.

Mowing your lawn is against nature.

I'm very blessed, mainly because even though my family is mostly in show business, it's really centered around music. My parents were very successful in many ways, but they weren't necessarily top of the charts. We were never wealthy because of music. We always had to work and we always had to struggle a little bit, and I think at the end of the day that's been very good for me, because I have a sense of it being very ephemeral.

Yes, I'm a homosexual and I like to shock people with glamour.

The song is about knowing the end result of every situation you're in, and being able to play it out in your mind and see it before it happens. It's about addiction, really, about knowing how it's all going to end up. In that sense, you're watching a movie of yourself all the time - and then you want out of that movie.

I don't want to hold you and feel so helpless I don't want to smell you and lose my senses And smile in slow motion With eyes in love.

Opera needs to be a total escape from real life. To relate to what we're going through today is fine and dandy, but it's really about being transported and completely swept away by a romantic notion.

And you will believe in love And all that it's supposed to be But just until the fish start to smell And you're struck down by a hammer.

Cigarettes and chocolate milk These are just a couple of my cravings Everything it seems I like's a little bit stronger A little bit thicker A little bit harmful for me.

I have a three-year-old daughter, which makes me more environmentally conscious. For me, it's about the future.

Putting all of my time In learning to care And a bucket of rhymes I threw up somewhere Want a locket of who Made me lose my perfunctory view Of all that is around And of all that I do.

I just think it's better to have ideas. I mean, you can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier, people die for them, people kill for them.

That will to love is very powerful. But it doesn't always win.

To me, songs come of their own volition - and with an open-ended philosophy.

I'll be honest, I worry sometimes about what I've done. I have tied my whole person to my art and, whatever it takes to get that hook, I will go there and do it.

I'm very much a romantic. I'm highly attuned to an older sensibility, which I believe is alive and well. We're not that far ahead of the Romantic Age in society.

I've written songs for Shirley Bassey, Marianne Faithfull, and Linda Thompson. I sort of focus on these wonderful, aging divas. But maybe that's because I think I'm Christina Aguilera.

But I want to deepen as an artist, and working with Shakespeare definitely points in that direction.

In retrospect, I'm really shocked at how far I put my heart out there on the line with 'Prima Donna'. I seem to have this knack for being able to accomplish that.

Places that have experienced great defeat experience a kind of rebirth, which I think America has to do - unless we want to get more decrepit. I don't think we have to destroy the place totally.

My love of classical hit pretty early. I was 13 when it occurred, and that was really the only music I listened to for many, many years. I went to a conservatory, but I always knew I would be in the pop world, because A) it was more fun and B) you didn't have to practice as much and you could go out more. But I immediately saw this opportunity to inject my material with these sounds that most members of my generation really didn't know about, so it was a great way to differentiate myself from the pack.

I would love to have a number one hit. The truth is if I don't get one, I'll be fine, but at the same time, the truth is that I'm dying for one, as well.

One of the main destructive forces within our family has been these runaway egos. I think if you look at any show business family, that struggle exists.

The artist who gave me the most inspiration and direction, especially as a singer - and I absolutely consider myself a singer, 100 percent - is Nina Simone. She's my ultimate pianist-singer-type person.

I think my imagination and my passions are still firing away, but it's really the body that starts to make up the rules. It's not a major problem; it's just when you get a little older you realize how much your body thanks you when you are good to it.

When I'm in the classical world, I really treat it as exactly classical and I don't try and spruce it up or jazz it up or make it easier for the masses.

Wouldn't Ponochio II be a great musical, now that he has to face the real world and get a wife... job. Now he wants to be a toy again.

'Prima Donna' is my kind of love song to opera but it's not the full experience.

I have a lot of advantages: I'm not addicted to horrifying pills. I also have surrounded myself with far more caring and upright individuals. And I wasn't abused as a child, so I'm doing okay!

My mother and father could not handle even me being gay. We never talked about it, really.

My dad and I have always been somewhat competitive.

My mother's songs are really turning out to be masterpieces. I have inherited this incredible legacy and am so fortunate to bathe in her sensibilities. It is tinged with tragedy. I'd much rather she was here in person, but there is still a positive force to come out of her death and that is having the gift of music that she gave.

Well, my great lesson with that was I went to the same production twice - once completely high and once completely sober - and both times were equally wonderful.

The thing I hate most is false modesty. The artists who are, like, 'Oh, you know, I'm really not that good. Oh, I can't believe I'm here.' I find it vaguely sinister, even.

My mother had a lot of parties when I was a child. There'd always be a moment when she would place me on the upright piano and have me sing Somewhere 'Over the Rainbow'.

Once illness strikes, you realize there's not a lot of time for you to do what you really need to do. And there's no time like the present.

I like to sing to Verdi, I like singing to Sibelius, and Mahler maybe.

I wish I could just relax sometimes and make some money, but I always feel like I have to prove some kind of big, profound point.

I definitely consider 'Poses' - the whole album in fact - to be kind of a miracle. Like the last breath of that moment when decadence is healthy, 'Poses' encapsulates that feeling. It's a kind of song and a kind of album that I'll never be able to repeat.

I should write a musical. That is probably one of the final areas that I should pay attention to, because it does kind of involve everything. It's got theatre, it's got young, pretty people... And it's got money!

Growing up, for years and years I had no idea what the plots of operas were, and that's part of what fascinated me - I could make them up and learn bits and pieces of what was going on over time. There's something about it being always a step away that makes it more fun to chase.

I love being not cool.

I think I've done a pretty fantastic job, but of course I want to sell millions of records.

I think my mother, more than anyone, knew the importance of inspiration. If it was occurring, you had to use it.

The operas I listen to aren't in English, and I want to listen to my opera after I'm done with it. I want to have the desire to play it on the stereo. To me, the language is part of the mystery.

I'm very fit on tour. I try to eat well, try to sleep. But it's still rock n' roll.