Top 66 George Michael Quotes

In the very early days of Wham! the attention felt great, but I do wonder how much freedom I gave away by trying to become something I wasn’t.

I define my sexuality in terms of the people that I love.

I had to walk away from America, and say goodbye to the biggest part of my career, because I knew otherwise my demons would get the better of me.

I have got other interests than just making music. I would like to follow those interests through.

I left school at 17 and was a star by the time I was 18 – in certain parts of the world anyway.

No one wants to look wholesome at 21!

It’s almost required with major artists that there’s some duality. And I’ve got duality everywhere.

If someone really wants to hurt you, they’ll find a way whatever. I don’t want to live my life worrying about it.

It’s only when the kids are in their late twenties that families really face up to what they are.

When you are trying to express things with metaphors and much more subtlety, that’s when you are doing yourself a disservice by making a video.

I think the media is a real demon.

There are things about my mum that I only realised later, things that make me admire her.

I don’t want to look at other people my age in leather. Why would I put it on?

I don’t really have any traits that I deplore. I get annoyed with myself sometimes, but that’s about it.

Anybody who fights for human rights or to make this world a better place. Nurses, doctors, teachers: these are the people who deserve the credit these days.

I’m not a novelty act from the ’80s in most parts of the world.

You can’t imagine what it’s like playing to people who have been loyal to you for 25 years and haven’t seen you for 15.

I don’t have joy in watching myself, whereas, actually, I quite like listening to my own music.

The media has affected everybody’s consciousness much more than most people will admit.

I went through a long period where I was afraid of doing things I wanted to do, and you get your courage back, which is what’s important.

I went to prison, I paid my bill.

I spent the first half of my career being accused of being gay when I hadn’t had anything like a gay relationship.

I have the audience I deserve. Or at least I have the audience that represents the kind of people that I like.

I know that I sound self-satisfied, and I know that I’ve got an ego, but I don’t have an ego problem.

For some strange reason, my gay life didn’t get easier when I came out. Quite the opposite happened, really.

In the years when HIV was a killer, any parent of an openly gay person was terrified. I knew my mother well enough that she would spend every day praying that I didn’t come across that virus. She’d have worried like that.

The fact I had my father as an adversary was such a powerful tool to work with. I subconsciously fought him to the degree that I drove me to be one of the most successful musician in the world.

With pop stars or film stars, we become the object of people’s self-definition, as well as the object of sexual definition.

The first sign of real obsession with music was with an old wind-up gramophone that mum had thrown out into the garage. My parents gave me three old 45s – two Supremes records and one Tom Jones record – and I used to come home from school literally every day, go out to the garage, wind this thing up, and play them.

I’m just not security-minded.

It’s important to me that I should be free to express myself.

Not many people are really that meticulous with what they do, I suppose, but I’m just a control freak and terribly afraid of failure or regret. I work very hard on these things.

I realised those things my ego needed – fame and success – were going to make me terribly unhappy. So I wrenched myself away from that. I had to. I had to walk away from America and say goodbye to the biggest part of my career because I knew, otherwise, my demons would get the better of me.

Of course, I want to sell this record – there’s no point making it otherwise.

Even though it’s become a really cliched thing to see musicians working for charity, it’s still effective and it still has to be done.

I want to make a pop album – something more upbeat than my stuff was in the ’90s.

I’ve been very well remunerated for my talents over the years so I really don’t need the public’s money.

Everything was going my way. I was happily marching into the history books. Then it all just fell apart.

I try very hard to thank my lucky stars and keep it all in proportion and perspective, but it can be very tiring having a smiley face all day.

It takes so much strength to say to your ego, ‘You know what? You’re going to keep me lonely, so I have to ignore you.’

Apart from some of the videos and haircuts, I don’t think I’ve made any wrong moves, ha ha!

Because of the media, the way the world is perceived is as a place where resources and time are running out. We’re taught that you have to grab what you can before it’s gone. It’s almost as if there isn’t time for compassion.

If you don’t feel you’re reaching something new, then don’t do it.

I would advise any gay person that being out in the real sense can never happen too soon.

I never really told my parents that I wanted to be a pop star or anything. They just knew that I was totally obsessed with music. Funnily enough, my father always used to say that he didn’t think I could sing.

I spent years growing up being told what my sexuality was.

I’ve never done anything so political before. I’ve spent years shouting my mouth off about serious issues over dinner tables but never really had the confidence to express my views in a song.

If I can just live further from the spotlight I think that’ll be better for all really.

My American gay audience have continued to dance and sing to the music I make in a way that straight Americans haven’t. I am grateful to them for that.

I really have no plans for any kind of career in TV or anything, but if I wanted to become good at it, I could. But I don’t really think it’s in the cards.

I have to believe that somebody up there thinks I’ve still got some work to do.

I do want people to know that the songs that I wrote when I was with women were really about women. And the songs that I’ve written since have been fairly obvious about men.

Celebrity and secrets don’t go together. The bastards will get you in the end.

I’ve written a whole body of work that I’m incredibly proud of.

I have more love, success, and security than I could ever dream of.

I think for most of us, our biggest frailties are sexual.

I never minded being thought of as a pop star. People have always thought I wanted to be seen as a serious musician, but I didn’t, I just wanted people to know that I was absolutely serious about pop music.

I am a political person, though not with a big P.

I owe my mother who I am, and my father my drive.

My ego is sated.

I’m the luckiest writer on earth.

I’d been out to a lot of people since 19. I wish to God it had happened then. I don’t think I would have the same career – my ego might not have been satisfied in some areas – but I think I would have been a happier man.

Your political system is actually too democratic. The fact that Americans vote on every bill and proposition can prolong bigotry indefinitely, especially where it is aimed at minority groups.

I had been obsessed with insects and creepy-crawlies: I used to get up at five o’clock in the morning and go out into this field behind our garden and collect insects before everyone else got up, and suddenly, all I wanted to know about was music. It just seemed a very, very strange thing.

The truth is my love life has been a lot more turbulent than I have let on.

I find it too terrifying to go out in L.A.