Rob Sheffield Quotes

When you're young, with less on the line, it's easier to be audacious, to experiment. So I introduced the concerns of my generation - politics, sex, drugs, rock-and-roll, etc. - to the comics page, which for many years caused a rolling furor.

A lot has been written and said about why he was so great, but I think the best way to appreciate his greatness is just to go back and play some of the old records. Time has a way of being very unkind to old records, but Elvis' keep getting better and better.

I don't think I've ever listened to 'Sgt. Pepper's' the whole way through.

You can't kill Rock 'n' Roll. It's here to stay

The interesting thing about the Beatles was: The music was one thing, but we kind of symbolized a certain kind of freedom at a time when people of our generation were just growing up and just becoming adults.

Why be second best at anything?

When I started, rock and roll itself was the basic revolution to people of my age and situation. We needed something loud and clear to break through all the unfeeling and repression that had been coming down on us kids.

I never aspired to be 2nd. I was taught... you can do whatever you want in this world, so why not be the best in the world?

Rock and roll doesn't allow you to grow up - especially if you're not trying very hard to.

Have you ever confused a dream with life? Or stolen something when you have the cash? Have you ever been blue? Or thought your train moving while sitting still? Maybe I was just crazy. Maybe it was the 60's. Or maybe I was just a girl... interrupted.

There is nothing conceptually better than rock 'n' roll. No group, be it Beatles, Dylan or Stones, have ever improved on Whole Lot of Shaking for my money. Or maybe I'm like our parents: that's my period and I dig it and I'll never leave it.

I love the classic trucker jacket as an icon of rock 'n' roll and rebellion.

Anton Bruckner wrote the same symphony nine times, trying to get it just right. He failed.

Enjoy music. Not the kind that rocks and rolls, but the music of the masters, the music that has lived through the centuries, the music that has lifted people. If you do not have a taste for it, listen to it thoughtfully. If you do not like it the first time, listen to it again and keep listening.

No matter what happens in the future, rock and roll will save the world.

Roy Orbison was one of the genuinely nicest persons I've ever known. With one of the most beautiful voices in the history of recorded music he could easily have had an opera star's ego, but he was one of the humblest, kindest, sweetest human beings to grace this planet. This in spite of the enormous tragedies in his life. A brave, beautiful blessing of a man.

We are looking at these rock 'n' roll campers, and we know what is going on in their minds because we've been there.

Freedom to rock, freedom to talk. Freedom, raise your fist and yell.

But most of all, the train that kept rollin' all night long of rock n' roll you cannot kill. It will live forever.

This is what I've learned, in my life: Headbanging is crucial. Growing up is hard to do. There's nothing wrong with wearing a dress.

I compulsively reach for perfection in music, often at the expense of everything else in my life.

I've embraced rock 'n' roll because it encompasses all the things I'm interested in: poetry, revolution, sexuality, political activism - all of these things can be found in rock 'n' roll. But I am also engaged in all of these things separately.

Rock 'n' roll is meant to entertain. Hippie folk singers are supposed to be singing about leftist views, but I don't think rock 'n' roll was ever that way. I don't remember the early rock 'n' rollers ever expressing any political views.

Perhaps the most serious complaint you could make about Bach is that he has every quality of humanity except imperfection.