Chris Cornell Quotations

And if you don't believe the sun will rise, stand alone and greet the coming night in the last remaining light.

There's something about losing friends, particularly young people, where it's not something that you get over. I don't believe there's a healing process.

I never wrote music or arranged songs or lyrics when I was under the influence of anything but coffee. That's not gone away.

What's important is to get into shape and then not to have to worry about it. I don't want to get on stage and not being able to do something. Not being physically fit doesn't work for me.

If I'm going to go out to be a solo artist, it's because I want to do something different without having to wait on someone else's schedule or hobbies or be limited by other people's prejudices. I'd be kind of stupid not to exercise that.

I can go from one extreme to another, from playing at the Sydney Opera House on the Songbook tour to shows with Soundgarden at Voodoo Fest, all in a week.

To me, music shouldn't be ego-driven. When you go out on stage and play songs, it is. But when you're sitting in a room, writing songs, it's a completely different process. It's a completely different place. It's a creative place, a musical place. It has nothing to do with who likes what.

To a degree, rock fans like to live vicariously and they like that, music fans in general, but when indie music sort of came into prominence in the early '90s, a lot of it was TV-driven, too, where if you saw the first Nirvana video, you're looking at three guys that look like people you go to school with.

What do you think Jesus would twitter, 'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone' or 'Has anyone seen Judas? He was here a minute ago.'

I'm not a lyric writer to make statements. What I enjoy doing is making paintings with lyrics, creating colorful images. I think that's more what entertainment and music should be.

The reason there's no modern-day Shakespeare is because he didn't have anything to do except sit in a room with a candle and think.

At the end of the day it's the fans who make you who you are.

I have a hard time narrowing things down to ten or 12 songs. If I walk off stage in anything less than two hours, it just feels strange. It feels early.

A true musician, like Johnny Cash, should be able to walk into a room with nothing but an instrument and capture people's attention for two hours.

In the United States, workouts tend to focus on body image and how you look. For me, it's really all about the brain.

I've had a long career and I want to continue to have a long career. The way to do that is not to go away.

Children should always feel like the adults are living in this world to nurture them, to take care of them, to protect them from any bad thing that might come.

When you start your first band and it has an impact on the rest of the world you go through a lot with those guys and you become very protective of that legacy.

Rock never meant the same thing to everyone, but when I was growing up in the late seventies, everyone could identify the five, ten bands that formed the center.

I think that one of the main privileges of what I do, which I am just starting to learn, is to have the ability to travel all over the world and experience different cultures.

'The Beatles' did whatever they wanted. They were a collection of influences adapted to songs they wanted to write. George Harrison was instrumental in bringing in Indian music. Paul McCartney was a huge Little Richard fan. John Lennon was into minimalist aggressive rock.

I don't get in there and create a character. It's more of a voice that I hear living inside the music.

Most frontmen are not born hams like David Lee Roth. We're more like Joey Ramone: awkward geeks who somehow find our place in the world on the stage.

I got in touch with the creative process between the age of 14 and 16, mainly because I was alone so much.

I play Texas Hold'em on my Blackberry. I have amassed a fortune on that. I have almost 30 million dollars from playing. It is unreal.

When I was maybe nine years old, I listened to the entire Beatles catalogue, non-stop, for about a year,

I used to work in jobs I hated because I needed the money to buy a guitar. I know what it feels like to be depressed. On the other hand, I also know what it feels like to have money, to be successful, to be independent, but I can tell you that money and success never solve your problems.

And I'm lost behind The words I'll never find And I'm left behind As seasons roll on by

The words you say never live up to the words in your head.

People don't realize how much fun it is to be depressed.

It's great when you play to an audience that knows the words to all your songs, and sings them back to you.

If I had a musical identity that was definable then it would be time to get into painting or something else. Race car driving.

I think it's important for fans to know that but if I'm doing something that inspires me musically then I think it will inspire someone else too.

Friends of mine that are from here or that have spent time here have told me about Israel and how warm the people are and that I should someday come here.

If you're an American kid, you can't help but be influenced by Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and the Rolling Stones because they're always on the radio,

I'm not usually in a talkative mode.

I'm looking California and feeling Minnesota.

My first favorite band that made music important to me was the Beatles. I was a little kid. I didn't know who was singing what song or who wrote what song.

Once you sit in front of people and start playing songs, it's all on you. No matter what happens, it's entirely your responsibility the entire time. I like that intensity.

I actually think to some degree that people are down for longer shows with an acoustic show.

Ever since I can remember I’ve had positive and negative fan reviews. And whether it was positive or negative it wasn’t always based in reality or what my perception of the music was. But judging from playing these new songs live and my feelings on the record [Scream] – and it’s a great record – there is definitely an audience for it. Also, I don’t really go to clubs so I don’t know what sounds are made there.

There wasn't a key moment when I knew I wanted to quit.

An acoustic show is all about you, and any little nuance or mistake is amplified.

What makes that song, I think, is how stark it is.

Sometimes, if a song is written, in essence, to be that stripped down, it's very touchy when you start adding things, because even the smallest thing can have a huge impact. Somebody has to make the decision that there's a better song in there if there's less.

I think that sometimes almost the bigger tragedy in a weird way is all of the future imagined creative projects that could have happened that didn't. I feel the same way about lots of brilliant people who die young, kind of senselessly especially.

I had to teach myself to let go of the conventional rock way of playing guitar and singing. Some things you wouldn't expect to work, did and some things won't ever work.

Everybody is influenced by someone.

I don’t really go to clubs so I don’t know what sounds are made there,

Maybe sincerity is the new punk. But to me, I think I have to connect with something emotionally, on some level, or I don't care about it. And if I don't care about it, then I don't think anyone listening to it will, either.

My brother brought home 'At San Quentin' when I was about 7, and we played it over and over again.

Led Zeppelin is just a bunch of stupid idiots who wrote cool riffs.

I don't really go mountain biking per se, like a proper sport.

The freedom I have as a U.S. citizen is unparalleled. Despite the fact people may not like American passports, having that passport affords me more freedoms than any other passport could.

I started as a drummer, so I sort of took on singing duties by default. I had sung backgrounds and some lead vocals from behind the drums in different bands that I'd been in, and I'd gotten great responses for the songs I would sing. I really started pursuing the possibility of being a lead singer based on the fact that I was working a full-time restaurant job and then playing gigs at night, hauling drums around. One day, it just dawned on me that, 'Hey, I could be in a band and be the singer, and it would be a lot easier!'

Radio and TV can still push a band, but things need to be shaken up. There is the Internet, but mostly what I see there is little kids on YouTube playing music.

If you are trying to think ahead musically, it is not going to help you. It is better to ignore what is happening melodically and just look at the little dots coming at you and the corresponding colors and try to do it at the right time.

I feel like you're not a real musician or entertainer if you can't go into a room, pick up an instrument and entertain people.

I don't think there are too many rock bands in history that can look at the beginning and middle and ending of themselves and see what I see when I think of Soundgarden. I think from the beginning through the middle and the end it was such a perfect ride and such a perfect legacy to leave,

She gives the night its dreams.

Be yourself is all that you can do.

Due to irresolvable personality conflicts as well as musical differences, I am permanently leaving the band Audioslave. I wish the other three members nothing but the best in all of their future endeavours.

She's known how to walk for about three months but she would only take steps if she was holding onto my finger, ... Now she'll just take off and go anywhere.

Most of the time, reading through treatments, it's like it could be any band, any song -- it doesn't matter that it's you or your song. The ideas are completely disconnected from the music and the image of the band.

My head was much more in it. We were able to write very quickly, all four of us in the room, and to do that, you have to be very present and very open-minded.

Nick and Vicky were raised in a restaurant family and they have a very familial Greek way of doing things. Nicholas was the one in charge at first, but bounced ideas off other people, particularly Vicky and I and my mother-in-law.

I was going to be a musician, no matter what it took. I supported myself with blue-collared jobs so I could write music and be in a band and play shows. I even got into an underground art scene. I was going to do whatever.

(Getting back together) would take the lid off that and could possibly change what up to now, to me, seems like the perfect lifespan of the band. I can't think of any reason to mess with that.

He just complained and complained the whole time we were there...But it didn't make any difference in terms of how our day went, because nobody there cared where we were from.

I think the concept of commercials, for example, I have had offers to do songs in different commercials, and it is not what I have liked.

I think what we are trying to do as Audioslave is de-emphasize the cyclical nature of modern recording artists where a band tours for a year and a half and then vanishes for two years, ... What we'd like to do is make records and tour. Write music, tour, record, tour. Keep it all going all at once like bands did in the '70s. Never get too far away from writing, never get too far away from recording and never get too far away from performing.

I will say Soundgarden if Audioslave draws a blank stare. I'm not beyond that.

Rock will always have CBGB, whether it's open or closed, ... It will just naturally be replaced by something else.

Rock will always have CBGB, whether it's open or closed.

When Soundgarden formed, we were post-punk - pretty quirky.

We want to have the next record filled up with songs that were performed for people before they were done in studio.

We are your ambassadors in a sense, and it was an extremely successful trip.

First and foremost, it was a lesson in propaganda. We were wound up, thinking we might be under surveillance, there would be hidden cameras in our hotel rooms, our phone lines would be bugged, they'd go through all our stuff. As Americans, we really aren't allowed to know much about Cuba or the people there.

Tom and Brad and Tim were huge fans of Soundgarden before I ever met them. The (Soundgarden) songs we have played they play incredibly well, they take very seriously and they love,

To answer your question, probably not, ... The fans, as well as ex-Soundgarden members, should feel the songs are a tribute and that's all.

What formed me as a musician, a songwriter, the sound and personality of my band, a whole lot of that happened well before 1991.

The show was very emotional. We all have so much experience that we were trying to trick ourselves into believing we weren't nervous. Afterward, we were sitting around saying the normal things you say after a show. Then suddenly we all became quite overwhelmed as it dawned on us that we had just done a very special thing.

Probably before that record comes out we'll be out playing shows again. The idea is just to break down what has been the normal cycle of a year and a half on the road, a year and a half making a record, not get so far away from one world or the other world. I think that that makes better music, I think it makes for a better live show, I think it makes a better band.

There's a lot of music that I don't like.

A Bullet is a man, from time to time he strays, I compare my life to this, To this I relate. And Im willing to listen to your answers, and im not ashamed to tell you I need you today.

It's like a tour diary on video that goes a bunch of places where Americans don't get to go.

I'm sure I could start a band tomorrow that would have different influences and would want to do something completely different than anything I've done.

I didn't have the same focus (when I was in Soundgarden) I have now. Now everything has come together. The focus on my wife and my children, it really helps me make sense of the music side of it somehow,

The focus on my wife and my children, it really helps me make sense of the music side of it somehow.

The freedom I have as a U.S. citizen is unparalleled. Despite the fact people may not like American passports, having that passport affords me more freedoms than any other passport could.

And if you dont believe the sun will rise, stand alone and greet the coming night in the last remaining light.