125 Quotes by Elton John
Elton John, a British singer-songwriter and pianist, is a legendary figure in the music industry with a career spanning decades. Known for his flamboyant style, powerful vocals, and intricate piano compositions, Elton John has created an extensive catalog of hit songs that have become part of the fabric of popular culture. His ability to blend various genres, from rock to pop to ballads, showcases his versatility and creativity as an artist.
Beyond his musical contributions, Elton John's advocacy for LGBTQ+ rights and his philanthropic efforts, particularly in the fight against HIV/AIDS, have earned him widespread respect. His influence on the music world and his dedication to using his platform for social change have solidified his status as an iconic musician and global advocate.
Elton John Quotes
There's a time for everyone, If they only learn, that the twisting kaleidoscope moves us all in turn.
It's the circle of life, and it moves us all, through despair and hope, through faith and love, 'till we find our place, on the path unwinding.
There is nothing wrong with going to bed with someone of your own sex. People should be very free with sex, they should draw the line at goats.
Music has healing power. It has the ability to take people out of themselves for a few hours.
Ask anyone. If it hadn't been for Elvis, I don't know where popular music would be. He was the one that started it all off, and he was definitely the start of it for me.
Don't judge the picture by the frame, every man is not the same
Live for each second without hesitation
Sometimes when I’m flying over the Alps I think, 'that’s like all the cocaine I sniffed.'
Better to build a bridge than a wall.
I think people should be free to engage in any sexual practices they choose; they should draw the line at goats, though.
Welcome to the world of bullshit, my dear. You have arrived.
People with HIV are still stigmatized. The infection rates are going up. People are dying. The political response is appalling. The sadness of it, the waste.
If you write great songs with meaning and emotion, they will last for ever because songs are the key to everything.
You can cage the songbird, but you can't make her sing. And you can trap the free bird, but you'll have to clip her wings.
Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids, in fact it's cold as hell.
I've only been interested in the artistic side of life.
Bands today have to learn their craft by putting the hard work in that we did when we were young performers.
And I talked to my doctor, and I must admit, you know, I'm sometimes quite renowned for my outbursts and I was just very frustrated, maybe a little frightened.
It seems to me, sorry seems to be the hardest word.
Sweet freedom whispered in my ear, you're a butterfly, and butterflies are free to fly, fly away, high-away, bye-bye.
The great thing about rock and roll is that someone like me can be a star.
Daniel is traveling tonight on a plane. I can see the red tail lights heading for Spain and I can see Daniel waving goodbye. God it looks like Daniel, must be the clouds in my eyes. They say Spain is pretty though I've never been, well Daniel says it's the best place that he's ever seen. And he should know, he's been there enough. Lord I miss Daniel, oh I miss him so much.
We were both very much the same. We were both very impulsive. We both loved life. We both loved shopping. We both had a love of clothes, obviously, because he was the designer that I kind of wore forever and ever.
The AIDS disease is caused by a virus, but the AIDS epidemic is not. The AIDS epidemic is fueled by stigma, by hate, by misinformation, by ignorance, by indifference. Science has accomplished miracles over the past 20 years, and science can now end this disease - but it cannot end the epidemic. We need more than medicine. We can do something about these things. We need to speak out about the changes we need to make in our society.
George W. Bush was passionate about AIDS. And we had a 10-minute talk at the interval of a concert at the Kennedy Center about AIDS. And I was astonished about how well-informed he was and his commitment to AIDS. And so it's the typical thing of don't judge a book by its cover until you have read the book.
Once you have people around you who don't question you, you're in a dangerous place.
I love places that have an incredible history. I love the Italian way of life, I love the food, I love the people, I love the attitudes of Italians.
Fame attracts lunatics.
I'm going to fight for human rights, whether I do it silently behind the scenes or vocally so that I get locked up. I can't just sit back; it's not in my nature. I can't sit back and blindly ignore it, and I won't.
I'm glad I've given up drugs and alcohol. It would be awful to be like Keith Richards. He's pathetic. It's like a monkey with arthritis, trying to go onstage and look young.
Hold me closer tiny dancer, count the headlights on the highway. Lay me down in sheets of linen, you had a busy day today.
I just wish more of my fellow queers would come out sometimes. It's nice out here, you know?
Instead of more violence why isn't there a [meeting of religious leaders]. It's all got to be dialogue - that's the only way. Get everybody from each religion together and say 'Listen, this can't go on. Why do we have all this hatred?'
I never thought of myself as being handsome or good-looking or whatever.
It's very important to have two tiaras when you're on the road. You never know when you'll be invited to something really formal.
I used to take hostages in my relationships and not let people be independent. It always ended in disaster, because you take away people's identity and they end up full of resentment.
You know, it's a very treatable disease. You shouldn't feel ashamed. But I'm afraid that's carried on very much so from the first days of AIDS, when it was basically a gay disease. And then, of course, you know, it affected everybody.
Religion promotes the hatred and spite against gays. From my point of view, I would ban religion completely. Organised religion doesn't seem to work. It turns people into really hateful lemmings and it's not really compassionate.
I have an optimistic view of everything. You have to, otherwise you'd go nuts.
I love every minute of fatherhood, staying up all night, changing nappies, kids crying, I find it really funny and inspiring. It connects you to the world in a new way.
I'm a juvenile product of the working class, who's best friend floats in the bottom of a glass.
So I am deeply saddened and shocked over the current legislation that is now in place against the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community here in Russia. In my opinion, it is inhumane and it is isolating.
I've always wanted to smash a guitar over someone's head. You just can't do that with a piano.
I was more ashamed that I couldn't work the washing machine than the fact that I was taking drugs.
I've got to do something to make up for all those self-absorbed and selfish years when I just, you know, was taking drugs, sitting in my room, doing bad things, whatever.
The less I say the more my work gets done.
I've been coming to America since 1970, and it's like my second home, but I've never felt such a divided country, ever. I didn't think it would get to this point, and it breaks my heart.
Don't be afraid to let her into your heart and when your down, don't try to carry the whole world on your shoulders.
I was sitting in the classroom trying to look intelligent in case the teacher looked at me.
The world is near escalating to World War Three and where are the leaders of each religion? Why aren't they having a conclave; why aren't they coming together?
I get bombed for breakfast in the morning, I get bombed for dinner.
He [Ryan White] had a kind of angelic aura about him. And his family, too, it's like, they are going through all this suffering, and I'm living this "Life of Riley" and I'm complaining about everything, and they are living this horrific life and complaining about nothing.
You don't know being a performer what kind of performance you're going to give. You know you can give a certain quality of performance, but as I grow older I'm much more content in my own skin because when I come offstage, I have a balance in my life.
I was just genuinely shy. I'd always been a shy kid.
Johnny, can't you come out to play in your empty garden?
How wonderful life is while you're in the world
Love is the key we must turn, truth is the flame we must burn.
I am the most well-known homosexual in the world.
I had no balance in my life. I was this one person onstage and this person offstage, who really didn't know much about living.
There's a lot of hate in the world.
I've got that resilient thing inside me. But I wasn't a happy bunny.
The worst thing you can do to a child, and I've seen it happen so many times, is the silver spoon.
My mum always used to buy a record every Friday.
I've got a great collection of photography.
My sex drive has gone down so much since I've stopped doing coke. I was one of the few people that, when I did coke, I had an enormous sex drive. I still have a healthy sex life today, but it's not so important.
I think that's the graveyard of musicians, playing cabaret. I think I'd rather be dead than work in cabaret. It's just so depressing.
You should never take more than you give
She's got electric boots, a mohair suit, you know I read it in a magazine.
Everything I thought I'd hate about having children - the crying, the screaming - nothing fazes me. I love it all and it's relaxed me.
I want to do a musical movie. Like Evita, but with good music.
The French are useless. They can't organize a piss-up in a brewery.
Laughing like children, living like lovers, rolling like thunder, under the covers, and I guess that's why they call it the blues.
Unless you show off you're not going to get noticed.
Ever since I had that interview in which I said I was bisexual it seems twice as many people wave at me in the streets.
From the start, I've always admired Eminem's thinking. That's the reason I wanted to appear on the Grammys with him when I was asked. Eminem has the balls to say what he feels and to make offensive things funny. That's very necessary today in America, with people being muzzled and irony becoming a lost art. Artists like Eminem who use their free speech to get a point across are vitally important. There just aren't many people in the world with balls that big and talent that awesome.
I'm a very wealthy man.
I have a lot of money stashed away, but I do live my life from day to day.
I don't have a computer. I am the Luddite of rock'n'roll, I don't have a portable phone. I write things down.
I hate to say this, but I always listen to the music and the instrumentation first, and then grab on to the lyrics later.
I'm 27 years clean, and when you get clean, you see things in a different way. It makes your life so much more manageable.
Rock and roll came in and changed my life and changed the whole music scene forever, and then I grew to love R&B and Motown and all black music, gospel music. But I never dismiss any form of music. I listen to everything.
I do like my rock stars to be a little larger than life. I don't mind the earnest ones at all, but I do like a bit of individuality.
I grew up at my grandmother's house, and she had a beautiful garden. I used to hate mowing the lawn and weeding, which is what you do when you're a kid. I loathe gardening, but I love gardens, and I have two beautiful gardens.
I guess that's why they call it the blues, time on my hands could be time spent with you.
I just go into the studio, look at the lyrics for the first time when I put them on the piano, and go. If I haven't got it within 40 minutes, I give up. It's never changed, the thrill has never gone, because I don't know what I'm going to get next.
Like a candle in the wind, never knowing who to cling to until the rain set it.
I went up to Prince and said 'I'm a big fan of your stuff' and he looked at me and just walked off...left me standing there like a ****. He's a prat, but a clever prat.
In my 20s I was so ignorant about drugs, and so naive. I mean, my band was smoking marijuana for years; I didn't even know what a joint was. And I'd never seen a line of cocaine in my life. And I don't know whether it was bravado or - OK, I'll join in. But my stupidity, I had a line of coke, and that started the whole process.
Anyone who lip-synchs in public on stage when you pay 75 pounds to see them should be shot.
Drunk all the time, feeling fine on elderberry wine.
That's just a part of being an artist: you can't write great stuff all the time, because if you did, then you'd be inhuman. The human side of people is that sometimes they fail.
The whole point of being in this business and being blessed and being successful is that you're able to do things for your friends or your family, which means that they can have something special in their lives, too.
We live in an age, in an era where there is so much negativity, there is so much violence in the world, there is so much unrest and people are at war, that I wanted to promote the word love and red signifies love.
Goodbye Norma Jean From the young man in the 22nd row Who sees you as something more than sexual More than just our Marilyn Monroe
I think Jesus was a compassionate, super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems.
If there's a God in heaven, what's he waiting for? If He can't hear the children, then he must see the war.
As a child, as a teenager, I was kind of not allowed to wear fashionable clothes.
When people go to rehab and come out, they go through a difficult period, a lot of people. I never had that. I was so glad to be rid of all that crap that for me, to learn again and to function as a human being and learn how to participate in the human race again was just pure joy.
I'm enjoying everything in my life, but I think the element of surprise in show business is what makes us really love it, because one day you're sitting by the phone waiting to do something or not doing anything, and the next day you've got the chance of a lifetime. Those little phone calls don't come up so often, but when they come up, it's fantastic.
Love's like a junkie, addiction's a fact. Passion's a monkey, you can't keep off your back.
I'm still as fascinated with the music business as ever. I'd love to do an electronic album like Prodigy or Underworld. I really like that sort of music.
You can beat her, but don't mistreat her. Oh, don't believe that woman please.
I love people who expect me to wear great, feathery costumes- and I do it. It's like an actor getting into his costume for his part. I don't really feel that part until I'm into whatever I'm going to wear.
My mantra is if you raise money, don't waste it.
Talk to each other. Never go to bed when you're angry with each other. Lady Antonia Frasier who was married to Harold Pinter said they never went to bed on an argument.
I find that so many of my peers of my age don't listen to anything new. But I love the new. I love the energy of the new, the energy of the new act. The young are so important. The young give you the energy, and if you don't notice the young, and you don't give them credit and you don't listen to all sorts of music, then you're missing out on something.
What a scandal, if I die. Yeah, I'm gonna kill myself, get a little headline news.
Rocket Man, burning out his fuse up here alone.
I think religion has always tried to turn hatred towards gay people. Religion promotes the hatred and spite against gays. But there are so many Christian people I know who are gay and love their religion...
At heart I've always been a music fan. That part of me has never changed since I was a little kid, sitting in a room watching a record go round, looking at the colour of the labels.
I had to learn how to function as a human being. And I really enjoyed that process.
It's so easy to write songs about misery and hard times and sadness. It's much more difficult to write songs about happy and chirpy stuff.
Jesus wanted us to be loving and forgiving.
I'm so proud to be on a Kate Bush record; she's always marched to the beat of her own drum.
For me music is so passionate. I have to give it my all every time I go onstage.
A great editor is the most valuable thing you can have as an artist because, as you said, sometimes you get too close to something. I think, apart from your talent, that's why you have the career you have - because you have great people behind you.
Simon Cowell and I are great friends and we wind each other up. Rod Stewart and I do the same thing.
I love to work. It fascinates me. And I love seeing who's coming up, who's got the charisma to last, who's got the intelligence to move on to other things. I'm so glad now that I'm stuck behind the piano, because when you're getting older it's very hard to waddle around the stage.
Shock waves to a tired brain, sends that hungry lady to my door again. She's my shelter from the storm when I feel the rain, entertaining white powder.
I can't think of anything until I've got printed words in front of me. I never wake up in the middle of the night with a song in my head.
To forgive and be forgiven, if it's the last thing I do, then in death's release I may find the peace that in life I never knew.
The ugliest woman you'll ever meet, but she's mine and she's ugly.
There ain't been no angels in heaven around since God invented girls.
I get upset when people knock hip-hop, because I can absolutely see the musicality in it. These days, when I'm listening to records by hip-hop artists, I hear the production. It's just astounding how great the productions have become.
I think Jesus was a compassionate, super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems. On the cross, he forgave the people who crucified him. Jesus wanted us to be loving and forgiving. I don't know what makes people so cruel. Try being a gay woman in the Middle East -- you're as good as dead.
My old man is drunker than a barrel full of monkeys, but my old lady she don't care.
I'm the Connie Francis of rock 'n' roll.
Blue jean baby, LA lady, seamstress for the band. Pretty eyed, pirate smile, you'll marry a music man. Ballerina, you must have seen her dancing in the sand.
It's like trying to drink whisky from a bottle of wine.
When stars collide, like you and I, no shadow blocks the sun" - The One
Take me to the pilot of your soul.
Don't shoot me, I'm just the piano player!
Make this man a saint now, OK?
― Elton John Quotes
Chief Editor
Tal Gur is an author, founder, and impact-driven entrepreneur at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own daring design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 major life goals around the globe. His journey and most recent book, The Art of Fully Living, has led him to found Elevate Society.
