Explore Quotes by Jarvis Cocker

Hawkwind are one of those bands that people introduce you to because you don't see them on the covers of magazines. I'd heard 'Silver Machine' but Russell Senior, who was in Pulp, got me into them. They had a song called 'Master Of The Universe' and we nicked the title in 1985 for one of our songs.

Will you see Pulp again? Who knows. I'm not stoking those particular rumours.

Being chronically shy I needed to create a persona for myself and be involved with a band where I could be ruler of my own kingdom. Then Pulp became hugely popular and I lost control of it, which is when it all went wrong.

Part of why I started a band was due to feelings of shyness and social ineptitude. I saw it as some way of being able to interact with people from a safe distance.

I got a pair of red, synthetic satin women's pants through the post the other day with a phone number on. That was quite strange. I haven't tried the phone number. In times of stress I may.

I think basically becoming famous has taken the place of going to Heaven in modern society, hasn't it? That's the place where your dreams will come true. It's an act of faith now; they think that's going to sort things out.

I've stuck to the same things for twenty years. I try to look like a slightly edgy geography teacher. Like what a geography teacher looked like when I was in school. Cords, sensible shoes and glasses. I never liked geography much as a subject though. In fact the only geography teacher I can remember from school was a woman who had a moustache.

I like bossy girls. I don't like girls who just do whatever they think you want them to do, and follow you around trying to please you all the time.

The things in my songs are the edited highlights of my life. I don't go seeking out strange sexual experiences every day of the week.

Pornography takes all the reality out of sex and Disney does that to family life.

I'd never really wanted to have a really 'private' life before. But when somebody starts delving into it and printing details through the tabloids for shagging people you shouldn't have shagged, then that probably made me shy away a bit more from giving too much away.

Well, once you've resigned yourself to the fact that you are the more mature pop performer and you're past the age you ever thought you would do it, you might as well do it as long as you can. As long as I can still lift a microphone, then I'll do it, you know.

You get to a certain age and you just want to prove that you can still rock - that you've still got it.

Noise is an easy thing to hide behind. If you make a lot of noise and shout behind that, nobody can tell what you're singing.

We've always been a bit out of touch with reality.

Unless you're living on the street and surviving on a diet of discarded turkey drumsticks, there's no point in being gloomy. We've spent too long trying to cheer ourselves up by spending money on brightly coloured things we don't really need. We've stopped using our imaginations.

There's the famous thing that the A&R man from the record company is supposed to do: He's supposed to come into the studio and listen to the songs you've been recording and then say, 'Guys, I don't hear any singles.' And then everybody falls into a terrible depression because you have to write one.

In some ways, I always thought you're better off behaving like a rock star when you're a normal person. Because if you do it as a rock star, you'll end up in the papers and your life will be made a misery.

I'm sure Sting's a lovely guy. It's just that nobody wants to be seen as that holier-than-thou thing. That over-earnestness is a bit of a problem with people in bands and celebrities or whatever.

I am proud, and more than a little excited, to be asked to work with Faber in an editorial capacity. It is my dearest hope that we will produce some fantastic books together.

I am passionate about keeping the human dimension in things. You have to keep the rough edges and the inconsistencies, that's what makes it interesting. I've always striven to be as sloppy as possible.