Top 111 Bowie Quotes

Words matter. These are the best Bowie Quotes from famous people such as Gilbert Baker, Coco Rocha, Paul Young, Toni Basil, Mark Strong, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.

Once I was finally liberated from my Kansas background,

Once I was finally liberated from my Kansas background, the first thing I did was get a sewing machine, because it’s 1972, and I have to look like Mick Jagger and David Bowie every single second. Taffeta jumpsuits.
Gilbert Baker
I would have loved to meet David Bowie.
Coco Rocha
I was in L.A. with my wife in a restaurant, and I spotted my great hero David Bowie at another table. Of course I wasn’t going to bother him. Then I felt a tap on my shoulder, and it was Bowie, and he squatted down to talk to me. David Bowie came down to my level – so gentlemanly.
Paul Young
People don’t connect the girl that sang ‘Mickey’ with the girl who was one of the seven original Lockers or the same girl who was in ‘Easy Rider’ or the same girl who choreographed David Bowie, Tina Turner, and Bette Midler tours. It’s like I’ve led five lives.
Toni Basil
My style icon has always been David Bowie. Just because of the variety of images and looks he created.
Mark Strong
I actually had the pleasure of meeting David Bowie at his 50th birthday party in New York City. I handed him the cassette of ‘Eight Arms to Hold You,’ which I had just got an advance of that day. He very graciously thanked me and tucked it into his jacket pocket.
Louise Post
More and more, there are things in my life that I find hard to say. Like, ‘David Bowie and Lorde were at my birthday party.’ She’s a phenomenal spirit.
Tilda Swinton
I met Bowie when I was 15 backstage at his ‘Reality’ tour and blacked out completely. I have no memory of the encounter except just looking into his different-colored eyes.
Evan Rachel Wood
Just as Bowie, Zeppelin, etc., became rock stars by remaking themselves in the image of the California girls, the Go-Gos became rock stars by pretending to be the Buzzcocks and the Sex Pistols. Jane Wiedlin always said her biggest influence was growing up in L.A. as a Bowie girl.
Rob Sheffield
There are so many forms of soul: David Bowie was soulful as hell; Johnny Cash was soulful as hell; you also have a Prince, a Stevie Wonder. I want to bring my perception of that and not live inside the box of, ‘This is the type of tracks you get,’ ‘This is the type of drums you get.’
Ro James
I hated most music in the 1970s, especially disco, but Bowie was edgier.
Anton du Beke
David Bowie worked with Brian Eno and dressed up in extraordinary clothes, but he was also a brilliant songwriter who captured the thoughts of a generation. He was hugely successful, without compromise.
Bat for Lashes
Don’t trust anyone that doesn’t like any Bowie songs.
Shaun Ryder
Beastie Boys and David Bowie are two of my favorite artists.
Anders Holm
Bowie is just a persona. He’s a singer, an entertainer. David Jones is a man I met.
Iman
David Bowie’s death came out of the blue, as did Prince’s.
Glenn Danzig
Working with David Bowie was very interesting, but I couldn’t surrender to it. I should have let him produce a record for me, but I’m very perverse in some ways. He’s brilliant, but the entourage were rather daunting.
Marianne Faithfull
They say don’t meet your heroes, but when it comes to Bowie, he truly is the most brilliant person I’ve ever met.
Johan Renck
I love many of the rock and rollers next up on altar of actuarial sacrifice more than I ever loved David Bowie.
Tom Junod
David Bowie is my biggest inspiration. Pretty much the only thing that stayed the same with Bowie was his eyes. Everything else constantly changed, from his sexuality to his songs.
Lil Peep
Harper Lee was my David Bowie, and I feel her loss in my bones.
Margaret Stohl
Kids love Lady Gaga because she’s a freak, and she’s one of the few people doing that, but unfortunately, Lady Gaga hasn’t got the tunes. She’s not David Bowie or Roxy Music.
Noel Fielding
I really didn’t get obsessed with Bowie until my freshman year in high school. I remember listening to ‘Starman’ and thinking it sounded like it was a song for kids, like a lullaby. The Thin White Duke is my favorite look that he created.
Scott Weiland
My first influences for playing were Johnny Ramone and Jimmy Page, the same as everybody else. Joe Perry. The guys in Alice Cooper’s band, whatever their names were. Mick Ronson from David Bowie. You know who really influenced me to write songs? Iron Maiden.
Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein
Early on, I was into David Bowie. Then someone in the band suggested I try a Bryan Ferry type of thing. That’s when I started wearing three-piece suits. It wasn’t unnatural for me.
Robin Zander
I have very fond memories of Basil’s Bar. It was an extraordinary place. You would go for a drink and it would be empty except for the bar bore, which was David Bowie.
Roddy Llewellyn
I’m a big Otis Redding fan, Al Green, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye. My hero is David Bowie. But I like the Beatles, the Stones.
Taron Egerton
It takes a long time to find your own voice. Along the way, you imitate all the things that influence you – in my case Johnny Cash, Bowie, John Lydon.
Dave Gahan
The title song of David Bowie’s ‘Young Americans’ is one of his handful of classics, a bizarre mixture of social comment, run-on lyric style, English pop and American soul.
Jon Landau
David Bowie is such a big influence to me. Everything about him as a person is intriguing to me.
Leona Lewis
I was always interested in acting and writing, and I honestly thought I’d make my name as a scriptwriter one day. But somehow, I ended up in London in the early ’70s, and that’s where I had my David Bowie adventure.
Angela Bowie
There were 'big stars' at the Alamo! Bowie, Crockett! I

There were ‘big stars’ at the Alamo! Bowie, Crockett! It is a huge political event because it, and the events at Goliad and San Jacinto, changed the look of a map of America. America would be a very different place if Texas had remained Mexican.
Phil Collins
Bowie would show up with one eyebrow, so we all shaved our eyebrows.
Bebe Buell
I think the first older artist I related to and loved was Bowie.
Shooter Jennings
I copied John Lennon; I copied a bit of David Bowie. It’s such a shame, and I’m so glad that now young girls have so many different role models in all different walks of life.
Viv Albertine
I didn’t know much about him, and I wasn’t a big country music fan. I listened to the Beatles and David Bowie, so I didn’t know a lot about him.
Joaquin Phoenix
Before I met David Bowie, I was very nervous. I thought, ‘Here comes the Thin White Duke, Ziggy Stardust. How will I ever communicate with him?’
Rory MacLean
David Bowie, who spent most of the ’70s establishing himself as a master of psychological disguises, is spending the ’80s trying to convince us that he’s just a regular fella – or at least as close to one as a millionaire pop star can be.
Robert Hilburn
I moved to London to work at the National Theatre and spent my first wage packet on Patti Smith, Bowie and Velvets records.
Toyah Willcox
It’s fun to look at people that are so good at acting that aren’t actors, like David Bowie creating a mystique about rock n’ roll. I’ve listened to ‘Ziggy Stardust’ as much as any rock n’ roll fan – I don’t really know what it’s about, but it sure is fun to think about David Bowie as this mad creation.
Val Kilmer
One day, I hope that I can come to Sandhill, and there’s a huge sign that says, ‘Welcome to Sandhill, Home to Tori Bowie.’
Tori Bowie
I was brought up on Black Sabbath, David Bowie, 50 Cent, and Guru. And it all comes out in my own music somewhere.
Yung Lean
Sometimes I wish I was one of those artists like David Bowie. They’re not putting their private lives out there; it’s about show and entertainment. But an alter ego is very dangerous for me. Because I am the guy who will become lost in that.
John Grant
I had another version of ‘We Dance’ that was kind of glam-rock. It was a little ‘Taking Care of Business’ mixed with Simon and Garfunkel. But on the album, I did it in a down-and-out way, like the Frogs or David Bowie or something – a little torch song thing.
Stephen Malkmus
Every collaboration helps you grow. With Bowie, it’s different every time. I know how to create settings, unusual aural environments. That inspires him. He’s very quick.
Brian Eno
I’m a ’70s guy at heart. I play a lot of Bowie and 10cc at home.
James Righton
I never had posters on my walls, and I didn’t have any icons, either. I come from a small village in Wirral, and my family didn’t watch TV. I wasn’t exposed to people with icon status. David Bowie popped up, but I had already shaved my eyebrows off by the time I saw his.
Pete Burns
My whole relationship with Bowie started when I was 13, and I bought a copy of ‘Aladdin Sane’ when I didn’t have a record player. I had this record for a year before I could play it, and it was the image – not the sound – that I was attracted to. I just saw this image and thought he was my cousin.
Tilda Swinton
My history of singing has always probably been closer to a David Bowie approach than, for example, an AC/DC approach.
Chris Cornell
‘Teenage Wildlife’ is just epic. It’s, like, five or six minutes long, and it kind of crescendos and builds into this insane vocal of Bowie wailing. I think I would pay $5,000 dollars to see footage of that recording session.
Anders Holm
Bowie’s ‘Hunky Dory’ influenced me. ‘Ziggy Stardust’ influenced Johnny Ramone a lot, especially his guitar parts.
Tommy Ramone
I felt like I grew up with Bowie. I never dressed like him, even though I did love the music, but consistently throughout my career he has been a go-to reference point: The suit from ‘Young Americans,’ or the gold Missoni-type looks of Ziggy Stardust. ‘The Berlin Years’ still influences me.
Edward Enninful
Technology was changing just as we were getting started. You had these records by people like David Bowie and Talking Heads and Brian Eno that took production into a whole new direction. That really influenced us, and pushed us to find that early sound we had.
Curt Smith
Without David Bowie, popular music as we know it pretty much wouldn’t exist.
Moby