Axl Rose quotes: the Guns N’ Roses frontman lays it all out there.
“Deep inside we’re all somebody. And it don’t matter who you wanna be.”
“You have to figure out how to follow your heart. I mean, I believe in being completely what you feel is being creative. But you also have to figure out how to make a living out of it. I don’t mean, like, compromising. If someone’s telling you to compromise, you can take what they’re saying into consideration and still figure out how to be real and do it your way.”
“We are made up of two contrasting ideals: love and fear. Pick one and live.”
“When you got a dream and you really believe in it, doesn’t have to be rock n’ roll… it can be a nuclear business man, I don’t give a sh*t, but when your teachers and your parents are saying, ‘Oh, come on now, let’s be reasonable,’ just tell them to f*ck off.”
“About my success: I did imagine success like this. I had grandiose ideas.”
“We take it for granted we know the whole story. We judge a book by its cover and read what we want between selected lines.”
“As for money and prestige, if one has an opportunity to make money and/or advance their position or place in life there can be a lot to weigh and consider, such as responsibilities, goals and objectives, etc. We all make choices, deal with our sense of priorities, principles, ethics, morals, balancing, juggling, making compromises.”
“What I’d tell any kid in high school is, ‘Take business classes.’ I don’t care what else you’re gonna do; if you’re gonna do art or anything, take business classes. You can say, ‘Well, I don’t want to get commercial,’ but if you do anything to make any money, you’re doing something commercial.”
“Regarding social media, I really don’t understand what appears to be the general population’s lack of concern over privacy issues in publicizing their entire lives on the internet for others to see to such an extent. But hey, it’s them, not me. So whatever.”
“The story of my life is the love of music. The feeling that came out of the words or music became my understanding friend, and I knew I could feel this way. A lot of times it was music in my head.”
“I started playing when I was really little, something my father wanted me to do because he regretted he hadn’t taken piano lessons. Sometimes I’d sit there for a couple hours and I’d just make up things.”
“I live, breathe, eat, walk, talk Axl. I knew in first grade I was going to change my name.”
“I feel I have a responsibility to myself, a responsibility to explain where we’re coming from. Because a song or the performance of a song is a lot like a work of art.”
“I like feeling a sense of unity with the crowd even though everybody might be thinking something different.”
“The release of the energy. Being able to express myself as I choose. There’s a certain pride in knowing that you achieved what you came to do.”
“It’s important to show people all forms of music. Basically, try to give people a broader point of view.”
“I write the vocals last, because I wanted to invent the music first and push the music to the level that I had to compete against it.”
“At times I enjoy writing and at others times I just hate it because it’s definitely having to go back and experience some pain and express what you really feel.”
“I think the pressure has also helped me want to rise above that pressure, and it has helped in accelerating the healing process. It’s helped give me a drive. I have a definite survival drive, and the pressure gave me a drive to get on top of it.”
“Sometimes I would want to sink, and then while I was sinking I’d go, ‘Wait a minute, this isn’t what I want to do,’ and I would calm down while I was sinking and then start rising back to the surface again.”
“I’ve done a lot of emotional work. I found I was basically dead, but still breathing. The only way to get through this pain was to go back through everything, re-experience it, and attempt to heal it.”
“Well, as you can see, being a f*cking psycho basket case like me has it’s advantages. How the f*ck did I get so f*cking important?”
“In general, I usually don’t really go by or live my life by a clock. I don’t really ask anyone else to.”
“I guess I like who I am now. I’d just like to have a little more internal peace. I’m sure everybody would.”
“I think saying you don’t have any regrets has become a popular thing for a lot of pop stars or whatever over the years. But I never buy that. So yeah, there’s things that could’ve been done better… or not.”
“Fear is where there is no love. Love is where there is no fear.”
“If love is blind I guess I’ll buy myself a cane.”
“To show each of us that there can be hope and true redemption in times of hopelessness and despair, that rehabilitation and turning one’s life around is not just for one’s place in what, if any, afterlife there may be… or one believes in… but here on this earth where it can do each of us the most good in this life now.”
“I think that it would be good for people to realize and understand that they are doing something to deal with their pain and they aren’t really going to be allowed to escape it and outrun it forever without side effects and certain consequences, as far as emotional and mental happiness and their physical condition. And I’d like people to be aware of those things.”
“Life sucks, but in a beautiful kind of way.”
“Let sleeping dogs lie or lying dogs sleep or whatever. Time to move on. Life doesn’t owe you your own personal happy ending, especially at another’s expense.”
Related: Bruce Springsteen quotes.
