Rufus Wainwright Quotes
Rufus Wainwright offers ironic, tragic snapshots of sexuality and confusion, a wild ride for the curious.
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'I am disappointed that my parents didn't give birth to a porn star.'
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Rufus Wainwright: Did you see that there's a chiropractor here?
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'Oh, what was that? Here try that again...this time toss it and say RUFUS! (Pause) That's always been my dream, to have girls to scream at me and be pummeled with roses.' ~ Rufus in Cleveland, after a girl threw a rose on stage
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'I, like, would run into walls and stuff. I was INSANE.' ~ Rufus on his childhood
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'I think it's a good, alone-in-the-middle-of-the-day type of a record. Or very late at night, with a whole bunch of friends after you've sort of had your fill of today's hollow culture, which can be fun. But if you get back home and you're with some friends and you just want to realize that there's more to life than Justin Timberlake, it's a good record for that, too. The one time I don't think would be very good is over dinner. I think it would make everybody regurgitate blood and then turn into werewolves.' on the best time to listen to his album Want Two
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'I feel that physical beauty connects to the depths of our animalistic selves, and I don't know whether that's good or bad or what. but it's very confusing.'
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'It is a great tragedy that Rufus Wainwright is gay.' (responding to screaming female fan)
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God, look at the flare on these pants. I feel like a Clydsdale...(long pause)...that's a horse.' -November 1, 2005, Beacon Theatre, NYC
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'I'm doing a new song in this show. Actually, I sang it on the last tour... It's a song, it's called 'Between My Legs,' and it's going to be another of my HUMONGOUS hits. They're gonna love it in the Bible Belt! ...Beneath the Bible Belt! ...Hey, that's pretty good! Beneath the Bible Belt... *giggle* Er, below the Bible Belt! Eh, however it goes... *giggle* This song's about the end of the world. Okay, here we go...' ~Before 'Between My Legs' in Northampton, MA on Nov. 4, 2005
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'Let the fairy within you fly!'
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My cheeks explode when I smile. That's why I have to look so nonplussed.
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My cheeks explode when I smile. Thats why I have to look so nonplussed.
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I have an ounce of Lady Gaga's full-bodied ambition.
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I definitely consider 'Poses' - the whole album in fact - to be kind of a miracle. Like the last breath of that moment when decadence is healthy, 'Poses' encapsulates that feeling. It's a kind of song and a kind of album that I'll never be able to repeat.
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You know the question: 'How do you get to Carnegie Hall?' Answer: 'Practise?' Well, in my case, I got there by not practising. I didn't finish my music degree. And when I got into the pop world, I decided not to conform because I figured that the point of being an artist was that you shouldn't be like anyone else.
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I've had my ups and downs, and I definitely have a sense - in America, especially - that once you've made your mark and gotten your Rolling Stone piece and your Grammy nomination, that they're on to the next piece of meat, and they don't necessarily like to follow the twistsand turns of an artistic career. Throwing an opera at them is something they have to notice. There's nothing subtle about it.
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I'll always be a boulevardier. I have an extreme reverence and romantic longing for all that is decrepit and fatalistic.
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I'm very blessed, mainly because even though my family is mostly in show business, it's really centered around music. My parents were very successful in many ways, but they weren't necessarily top of the charts. We were never wealthy because of music. We always had to work and we always had to struggle a little bit, and I think at the end of the day that's been very good for me, because I have a sense of it being very ephemeral.
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Growing up, for years and years I had no idea what the plots of operas were, and that's part of what fascinated me - I could make them up and learn bits and pieces of what was going on over time. There's something about it being always a step away that makes it more fun to chase.
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Once illness strikes, you realize there's not a lot of time for you to do what you really need to do. And there's no time like the present.
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I basically have needed to go to the piano and give voice periodically to, you know - I'm always afraid to describe it as a kind of therapeutic process, but nevertheless it was a type of unloading that had to occur due to my personal life with my mother's health or just my professional trials and tribulations.
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And you will believe in love And all that it's supposed to be But just until the fish start to smell And you're struck down by a hammer.
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It's about how whenever I fall in love, I have these expectations of the experience being a perfect dream, which, of course, ruins it. I imagine cradling my lover's head in my lap in a cab in the middle of the night, and drinking champagne in an elegant hotel suite. But life's rarely like that, and I usually end up walking home by myself in the rain.
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Crazy as it sounds, I'm a believer in destiny and serendipity, and I have had cosmic experiences all my life. Something told me I was meant for greater stuff. And look, I've had a baby! And I've written an opera!
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I think everybody identified at a pretty young age that I was fairly entranced with myself. And that I had to be tempered.
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The song is about knowing the end result of every situation you're in, and being able to play it out in your mind and see it before it happens. It's about addiction, really, about knowing how it's all going to end up. In that sense, you're watching a movie of yourself all the time - and then you want out of that movie.
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I like to make the mundane fabulous whenever I can.
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I was in the forest jumping around daffodils while everyone was high on heroin.
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I may not lead the most dramatic life, but in my brain it's 'War and Peace' everyday.
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Opera needs to be a total escape from real life. To relate to what we're going through today is fine and dandy, but it's really about being transported and completely swept away by a romantic notion.