Latest Rufus Wainwright Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• I would love to have a number one hit. The truth is if I don't get one, I'll be fine, but at the same time, the truth is that I'm dying for one, as well. But it's worth a shot, I think, while I still have cheekbones.

  Rufus Wainwright

  Thinking, Dying, Truth Is

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• The pop world is popular, and it's about what the people want and connecting to the masses, whereas opera, although it was once popular - and I still believe it can be - it has become very elitist and intellectual, but that certainly doesn't sell tickets. It's a struggle, but I've always embraced struggle and thrived off of it, so it's the way my life needs to go.

  Rufus Wainwright

  Believe, Struggle, People

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• 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.

  Rufus Wainwright

  Real, Needs, Opera

  "Rufus Wainwright on Passion, Opera and Taking Care of the Earth". Interview with Kristi York Wooten, www.marandapleasantmedia.com. May 1, 2014.

• When I was young, my mother [folk singer Kate McGarrigle] brought home this recording of Verdi's Requiem and we listened to it from top to bottom. By the end of it, I was a completely different person. It was literally a requiem mass for my former self. I was about 12 or 13. The Requiem just totally hooked into what I was going through emotionally - discovering my sexuality right at the time when AIDS was devastating my community and dealing with intense parental situations.

  Rufus Wainwright

  Mother, Home, Self

• My greatest experiences in the theatre and the most religious experiences in my life - of which going to the opera is one for me - have been with the Romantic composers' repertoire: it's Wagner, it's Strauss, Verdi, Puccini. That era gets me every time.

  Rufus Wainwright

  Religious, Theatre, Opera

  "Rufus Wainwright on Passion, Opera and Taking Care of the Earth". Interview with Kristi York Wooten, www.marandapleasantmedia.com. May 1, 2014.

• Climate change has always been sort of my main focus. I think also with [what happened in Fukushima, Japan] there's still a lot to think about in terms of what's coming down the pike into the world's oceans, too.

  Rufus Wainwright

  Ocean, Thinking, Japan

  "Rufus Wainwright on Passion, Opera and Taking Care of the Earth". Interview with Kristi York Wooten, www.marandapleasantmedia.com. May 1, 2014.

• I have a three-year-old daughter, which makes me more environmentally conscious. For me, it's about the future.

  Rufus Wainwright

  Daughter, Years, Three

  "Rufus Wainwright on Passion, Opera and Taking Care of the Earth". Interview with Kristi York Wooten, www.marandapleasantmedia.com. May 1, 2014.

• Musically I'm able to keep going, because it's not about money and it's not about success. It's a challenge.

  Rufus Wainwright

  Challenges, Able, About Success

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• 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.

  Rufus Wainwright

  Struggle, Blessed, Successful

  "If Music Be the Food of Love, Play on, Rufus Wainwright". Interview with Jacob Blickenstaff, www.motherjones.com. June 25, 2016.

• I have a lot of advantages: I'm not addicted to horrifying pills. I also have surrounded myself with far more caring and upright individuals. And I wasn't abused as a child, so I'm doing okay!

  Rufus Wainwright

  Children, Caring, Pills

  "If Music Be the Food of Love, Play on, Rufus Wainwright". Interview with Jacob Blickenstaff, www.motherjones.com. June 25, 2016.

• My love of classical hit pretty early. I was 13 when it occurred, and that was really the only music I listened to for many, many years. I went to a conservatory, but I always knew I would be in the pop world, because A) it was more fun and B) you didn't have to practice as much and you could go out more. But I immediately saw this opportunity to inject my material with these sounds that most members of my generation really didn't know about, so it was a great way to differentiate myself from the pack.

  Rufus Wainwright

  Fun, Opportunity, Practice

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• I think my imagination and my passions are still firing away, but it's really the body that starts to make up the rules. It's not a major problem; it's just when you get a little older you realize how much your body thanks you when you are good to it.

  Rufus Wainwright

  Thank You, Passion, Thinking

  "If Music Be the Food of Love, Play on, Rufus Wainwright". Interview with Jacob Blickenstaff, www.motherjones.com. June 25, 2016.

• I strive for what you do find in Shakespeare's work - that there is a definite humanity and a definite character behind the writing in the sonnets, and it's very real because it's so deeply personal. I try to aspire to that in what I do.

  Rufus Wainwright

  Real, Writing, Character

  "If Music Be the Food of Love, Play on, Rufus Wainwright". Interview with Jacob Blickenstaff, www.motherjones.com. June 25, 2016.

• But I want to deepen as an artist, and working with Shakespeare definitely points in that direction.

  Rufus Wainwright

  Artist, Want

  Source: www.motherjones.com

• Certainly in terms of my life - anybody's life - you go through death, childbirth and marriage, glory and defeat, and so on.

  Rufus Wainwright

  Defeat, Glory, Childbirth

  "If Music Be the Food of Love, Play on, Rufus Wainwright". Interview with Jacob Blickenstaff, www.motherjones.com. June 25, 2016.

• Well, my great lesson with that was I went to the same production twice - once completely high and once completely sober - and both times were equally wonderful.

  Rufus Wainwright

  Lessons, Sober, Wonderful

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• The operas I listen to aren't in English, and I want to listen to my opera after I'm done with it. I want to have the desire to play it on the stereo. To me, the language is part of the mystery.

  Rufus Wainwright

  Play, Desire, Done

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• 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.

  Rufus Wainwright

  Growing Up, Fun, Years

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I definitely have a Luddite's approach to what's going on. I find that as I get older, I get stupider. For me, the iPhone is harder than reading Faust. I've been hanging out a bit with Lou Reed, and he's the complete opposite. He's into technology and is kind of like a toddler, compared to me, who's like an old 19th-century widow or something.

  Rufus Wainwright

  Reading, Technology, Iphone

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I don't know if it will be my big comeback, but I think it is a statement - that I am a self-sustaining, vibrant, long-term artist, and I'm not going away! And if you don't give me credit, then the musical gods will!

  Rufus Wainwright

  Artist, Thinking, Self

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I was keenly aware that I didn't want to draw on too many typically doomed aspects of the fated singer. Whether it's Judy Garland or Norma Desmond, there is this tragic quality to older women that one can revel in, and you want it to be more three-dimensional than that. So it was important for the character to be strong and resilient, because there are so many victims in opera.

  Rufus Wainwright

  Strong, Character, Important

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• 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.

  Rufus Wainwright

  Careers, America, Meat

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• You had to be an over-the-top, demanding, dramatic figure in order to progress as a woman in Europe over the last few hundred years. Now people say, "You're being such a prima donna," meaning you're being hard to deal with or crazy. It's a bit sexist.

  Rufus Wainwright

  Crazy, Order, Years

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• There is actually a great book called Prima Donna by Rupert -Christiansen that deconstructs the myth. In fact, many of the women who were prima donnas were feminists and incredible forces for their time.

  Rufus Wainwright

  Book, Feminist, Facts

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I'm 33 and in my "Jesus year," and I want it all right now. I want a perfect body. I want to have a perfect love affair. I want every member of my family to be healthy and happy. And I want the world to save itself and for America to realize that it has to give up its idea of being an empire. Wait until I hit 40; then it'll all come crumbling down.

  Rufus Wainwright

  Jesus, Giving Up, Years

  "Rufus Wainwright: Baroque Pop Idol". Mother Jones Interview, www.motherjones.com. May 14, 2007.