Microphone Quotations

As visual metaphors go, it was a lavishly gilded lily of an image, a hanging curveball across the plate, a George Tenet-style slam-dunk: A weary President Bush, trying to escape a news conference in Beijing on Sunday, strides away from the microphone to a pair of locked doors, which he pulls and tugs in vain. No exit, the image screamed. No way out. Of course, George Bush will inevitably get out of the mess he has made -- he leaves office in three years and two months, not that anyone's counting. But the rest of us will be left with his handiwork: crushing national debt, rising economic inequality, a poisoned political atmosphere and, oh, yes, the war in Iraq. We're the ones trapped in the dark with no exit sign in sight.

A singer for me is more like someone who is standing alone with a microphone like Scott Walker, rather than someone who is bashing a plank and is spitting all over a microphone.

With the advent of cell phones, especially with the very small microphone that attach to the cell phone itself, it's getting harder and harder I find, to differentiate between schizophrenics and people talking on a cell phone.

Any man with a microphone can tell you what he loves the most.

When it comes down to the music, it's just you and the microphone. It's not you and the record execs.

What is going on on the island is encouraging a cacophony of opinion, freely donated by whoever has a microphone in front of their mouth.

We don't look like anything most of the people in our audience have ever seen. We wear vintage clothes-and hats-and we use one microphone for all our vocals, so there's a lot of movement on stage. We'll have every kind of harmony; every instrument will be featured; and we'll do everything from breakdowns to waltzes to gospel quartets. I guarantee this: from the moment we hit the stage until the moment we leave, the audience is going to be entertained.

So while you're imitating Al Capone, I'll be Nina Simone, And defacating on your microphone

You won't see me at a microphone singing and tapping my foot. I spend a lot of money on sets, costumes and sound. I believe people deserve a show. I'm a singer, musician, dancer. I work hard, and I'm soaking wet when I come off.

When you get to the end of a TV series, you feel totally out of sorts as an actor. You feel unfit; your voice box has collapsed on you because you've spent all day muttering into a microphone that's two inches from your head, and you feel desperate to spread your wings and do a bit of real thesping.