Top 35 Phil Collins Quotes

Many of the articles printed over the last few months have ended up painting a picture of me that is more than a little distorted.

I started drumming around the same time I came across this part of American history. But there seemed to be a way forward playing drums. There didn’t seem to be a way forward being fascinated by a piece of history.

I don’t really belong to that world and I don’t think anyone’s going to miss me. I’m much happier just to write myself out of the script entirely.

I know it shouldn’t make a difference, but crossing the dateline, we weren’t sure what day it was – it was very strange. Now, I seem to cope with it better.

That’s going to be on my headstone: ‘He came. He wrote ‘In the Air Tonight.’ He… died.’

To see a lot of the smaller labels disappear or get gobbled up by the bigger labels, that’s a shame. It was a bit of a shock at first to see the demise of the record stores.

I’m just trying to do things that are interesting for me.

I’m fascinated by what people will do to each other. Actually, I’m sort of interested in the gory details of life.

It’s always been easy with Mark, he’s a rock fan and we speak the same language. He’s a big Beatles fan too. We worked a lot via CLI calls, though only meeting up once every couple of months.

As soon as you start making a record, things start getting lined up: the promotion, possibly even a tour.

I have never been a Conservative, or at least not since being a young teenager. My father voted Conservative, and even his doing that was a hangover from the ’50s and ’60s, which may have been an influence on me.

If a musician dares to get out of the box he’s been put in, people get confused. They want people where they can find them! I am fortunate in some respects as I’ve always been known as someone who ‘moves around’ and tries different things. But generally, we are supposed to stay where we’re put.

I’ve spent the last year and a half going through a very public separation, hiding in hotel lobbies.

The story of the Alamo has touched many more people than one would think. So, I would like to pay my respects to those men on both sides of the walls in those months of February and March 1836.

I’m sorry that it was all so successful. I honestly didn’t mean it to happen like that. It’s hardly surprising that people grew to hate me.

Yes, I am aware that I have become a caricature. I’ve thought about this. Conceptually, what I’d like to do is the equivalent of writing myself out of the script.

I’m not a singer who plays a bit of drums. I’m a drummer that sings a bit.

All I set out to do was to earn a living playing drums, you know? And as luck would have it, I’ve surpassed that.

You know, a song is like a kid. You bring it up. And sometimes something you thought was going to be fantastic, by the time it’s finished, is a bit of a disappointment.

In Genesis we saw ourselves as song-writers. After Peter Gabriel left I was the first to say: ‘It’s OK – we can just do instrumentals.’

Many people think of me as a perfectionist, someone who polishes and shines each song and performance. I’ve always been bothered by that assumption.

I prefer black music in general.

I’m writing new songs for a Broadway version of Tarzan, which is very interesting. I think what I learned from the Brother Bear score side of things, I’ve brought into the new Tarzan songs. Thinking outside just guitar, bass, drums and keyboards.

In 1977 we played America and Europe three times, and Japan – my marriage suffered as a result. My then wife took the kids to Canada to be near her parents.

And, you know, I never wanted to be a singer.

I usually hang around the room listening to a bit of last night’s show. If there’s one available, I go to the steam room every day for my voice. I spend half an hour there and then I eat, because I can’t eat later than four o’clock. Then I go for a soundcheck. That’s my day.

My only saving grace is that I actually collect things that nobody else is interested in.

I can’t play anywhere near like I used to, and I was a hot drummer. It doesn’t bother me, because frankly, if you get to that point where you can’t hold a drumstick properly, there are many other things in life which are far more important, like cutting a loaf of bread or a piece of cheese.

I grew up in the day when the Beatles sold 1 million singles in a week. And all you’ve got to do now is sell about 10,000 singles and you’re in the charts.

The world is in your hands, now use it.

I never stopped thinking about the Alamo from that day to this. I’m a huge collector of memorabilia. I’ve got Davy Crockett’s bullet pouch. I’ve got Colonel Travis’s belt.

I don’t own an ABBA album, and I never had the urge to go and buy one. If you’re just talking about well crafted pop songs, they were fantastic.

To be honest, producing records interests me less at the moment and I really don’t want to get involved in album projects that are going to take up a lot of time.

Another time, we had three days off in Australia, so we went out of our way to fly to Ayres Rock.

No seriously… when there’s families, you tend to go back to your room after the gig rather than go for a drink with the other guys. But there’s always someone who’s got something going, like the tour manager.