Bachman Quotes & Sayings

He was a heavy breather. You could hear him puffing and blowing into the mike up there like some large and sweaty animal. I don't like that, never have. My father is like that on the telephone. A lot of heavy breathing in your ear, so you can almost smell the scotch and Pall Malls on his breath. It always seems unsanitary and somehow homosexual. — Richard Bachman

The apartment was haunted by the ghost of long-departed cabbage. — Richard Bachman

It just ... it seems hard to say anything that isn't the wrong thing. — Richard Bachman

That was Dad's life, and I was the birdshit on his windshield. — Richard Bachman

I went over to where Ted was leaning against the green cinderblock wall. He was sitting with his legs splayed out below the bulletin board, which was full of notices from the Mathematical Society of America, which nobody ever read, Peanuts comic strips (the acme of humor, in the late Mrs. Underwood's estimation), and a poster showing Bertrand Russell and a quote: "Gravity alone proves the existence of God." But any undergraduate in creation could have told Bertrand that it has been conclusively proved that there is no gravity; the earth just sucks. — Richard Bachman

We like the imperfect because it reminds us of ourselves. — Randy Bachman

The guitar is such an incredible instrument; it plays classical, flamenco, jazz, country, bluegrass, rock, acid, blues. You'll never see a clarinet playing Black Sabbath. But you will see a guitar in a clarinet band playing rhythm. It is the most popular instrument in the world; it is the one everybody loves. — Randy Bachman

We are going to understand all about the difference between people and pieces of paper in a file, and the difference between doing your job and getting jobbed ... — Richard Bachman

My love, growing up on the Prairies, was country music. — Randy Bachman

The deal is this. You be the hero. Come down here. Unarmed. Come inside with your hands on your head. I'll let everybody go. Then I'll blow your fucking head off. Sir. How's that for a deal? You buy it? — Richard Bachman

You think just knowing about death will keep you from dying? — Richard Bachman

I started playing the violin when I was 5, but by the time I was 12 or 13, I wasn't really liking it. — Randy Bachman

The dead are orphans. No company but the silence like a moth's wing. An end to the agony of movement, to the long nightmare of going down the road. The body in peace, stillness, and order. The perfect darkness of death. — Richard Bachman

I think what made John Lennon so exciting as an artist is that, like Dylan and other musicians with a truly important musical legacy, he had several faces, personas that changed over time as he developed. — Randy Bachman

You don't need a uniform color: We used a mixture of brick red, browns and grays, and then threw in seashells, branches and various types of rock, so our walls ended up looking like cave paintings! — Randy Bachman

It's not odd these days to hear politicians trumpeting their own authenticity, a claim that an earlier day would have considered self-cancelling. But when Michelle Bachman, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum say "I'm authentic," they're not evoking the shade of Neal Cassady. (102) — Geoffrey Nunberg

Another time, another place. — Richard Bachman

The local music community here was dying for a place to record, so we started doing acoustic, folk and bluegrass and then did rock projects for other bands, as well as for my son Tal and my own work. — Randy Bachman

Sometimes the gods give you a break. — Richard Bachman

I look on most religions as fear-based rather than love-based. I've drifted away from all that. Yes, I think I'm more spiritual. I just don't go and pretend every Saturday or Sunday that I'm in this wonderful club. I'm exploring. — Randy Bachman

Memories are contrary things; if you quit chasing them and turn your back, they often return on their own. — Richard Bachman

With The Guess Who, it took us fifty-something singles before we had hits. — Randy Bachman

He watched his feet, the only things that were keeping him from finding out if there really was a Kingdom of Heaven or not. — Richard Bachman

He touched McVries's shoulders, setting him straight again. McVries looked up at him sleepily and smiled. No, Ray. It's time to sit down. — Richard Bachman

It's nice to get any awards, whether it's lifetime achievement or the Keith Richards award for being alive one more year. — Randy Bachman

Now the only way out is straight up to Heaven. — Richard Bachman

When one knows at an early age that their gift, talent and direction is musical, one tends to focus on that and let nothing interfere or impede the forward motion toward the end of that rainbow. And after 50-something years of rockin' out, you still realise there is no end to that distant rainbow until one's last sunset. — Randy Bachman

Things hurt more when you were alone, that was all. — Richard Bachman

Craziness is only a matter of degree, and there are lots of people besides me who have the urge to roll heads. They go to stock-car races and the horror movies and the wrestling matches they have in Portland Expo. Maybe what she said smacked of all those things, but I admired her for saying out loud, all the same
the price of honesty is always high. She had an admirable grasp of the fundamentals. Besides, she was tiny and pretty. — Richard Bachman

Just go on dancing with me like this forever, Garraty, and I'll never tire. We'll scrape our shoes on the stars and hang upside down from the moon. — Richard Bachman

If there is an after, I hope it's not dark. And I hope you can remember. I'd hate to wander around in the dark forever, not knowing who I was or what I was doin' here, or not even knowing that I'd ever had anything different. — Richard Bachman

Radio was my lifeline as a kid growing up in Winnipeg in the 1950s. It connected me with the wider world outside our little prairie city. — Randy Bachman

I never found either this or the Northern Shrike return to such prey for food. I have seen them alight on the same thorn bush afterwards, but never made any use of this kind of food. — John Bachman

EXPLOSIVE IN MY COAT POCKET - THE VARIETY THEY CALL BLACK IRISH. TWELVE POUNDS IS ENOUGH TO TAKE OUT EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE WITHIN A THIRD OF A MILE AND PROBABLY ENOUGH TO EXPLODE THE JETPORT FUEL STORAGE TANKS. IF YOU DON'T FOLLOW MY INSTRUCTIONS — Richard Bachman

I learned at an early age that I was given something special when I was born, and that was the gift of music. — Randy Bachman

The reason all of this is so horrible," McVries said, "is because it's just trivial. You know? We've sold ourselves and traded our souls on trivialities. — Richard Bachman

They got that way, Garraty had noticed. Complete withdrawal from everything and everyone around them. Everything but the road. They stared at the road with a kind of horrid fascination, as if it were a tightrope thay had to walk over an endless, bottomless chasm. — Richard Bachman

When everything is at its worst, your mind just throws it all into the wastebasket and goes to Florida for a little while. There is a sudden electric what-the-hell glow as you stand there looking back over your shoulder at the bridge you just burnt down. — Richard Bachman

I don't think that bands that make it on their first album are as strong as bands that don't: there is nowhere to go but down. — Randy Bachman

I think if you're a painter, you paint; if you're a golfer, you golf; if you're a fisherman, you fish; if you're a musician, you play music. — Randy Bachman

My songs are like cheap Neil Young copies. — Randy Bachman

People have made a living deconstructing Lennon and The Beatles songs because of their compositional sophistication. But what's so exciting about John is that he never had any of that training on musical theory; something just spoke to him, and he just knew what sounded right. — Randy Bachman

Mr. Grace sounded like a very small child, helpless, hopeless. I had made him fuck himself with his own big tool, like one of those weird experiences you read about in the Penthouse Forum. I had taken off his witch doctor's mask and made him human. But I didn't hold it against him. To err is only human, but it's divine to forgive. I believe that sincerely. — Richard Bachman

Crowd was to be pleased. Crowd was to be worshipped and feared. Ultimately, Crowd was to be made sacrifice unto. — Richard Bachman

Olson sat up. He put his hands against his belly and stared calmly at the poised soldiers on the deck of the squat vehicle. the soldiers stared back. 'You bastards!' McVries sobbed. 'You bloody bastards!' Olson began to get up. Another volley of bullets drove him flat again. Now there was a sound from behind Garraty. He didn't have to turn his head to know it was Stebbins. Stebbins was laughing softly. Olson sat up again. The guns were still trained on him, but the soldiers did not shoot. Their silhouettes on the halftrack seemed almost to indicate curiosity. Slowly, reflectively, Olson gained his feet, hands crossed on his belly. He seemed to sniff the air for direction, turned slowly in the direction of the Walk, and began to stagger along. — Richard Bachman

He was going to make this happen. His feet and his head was set, and when he got that way, he always did what he said he was going to do. It was his pride. The only one he had. — Richard Bachman

I have seen one shrike occupy himself for hours in sticking up on thorns, a number of small fishes that the fishermen had thrown on the shore. The fishes dried up and decayed. — John Bachman

You are still lucky - you have a certain type of people who keep buying your music - but then you can get typecast and have to keep making that same music, and you can change only slightly. It's risky to bounce around and change your type of music. — Randy Bachman

Sanity:
You can go through your whole life telling yourself that life is logical, life is prosaic, life is sane. Above all, sane. And I think it is. I've had a lot of time to think about that ...
I think; therefore I am. There are hairs on my face; therefore I shave. My wife and child have been critically injured in a car crash; therefore I pray. It's all logical, it's all sane.
... there's a Mr. Hyde for every happy Jekyll face, a dark face on the other side of the mirror ... You turn the mirror sideways and see your face reflected with a sinister left-hand twist, half mad and half sane.
... No one looks at that side unless they have to, and I can understand that.
... I'm the sane one. — Richard Bachman

When you play all that as a body of work there are four great songs, four mediocre songs and four bad songs. I didn't know it at the time; I was just doing my best. — Randy Bachman

More birds have adapted to a changing world than have failed. Very few have the narrow tolerance of the ivory-billed woodpecker or the Bachman's warbler. — Roger Tory Peterson

None of us really has anything to lose. That makes it easier to give away. — Richard Bachman

In the year 2025, the best men don't run for president, they run for their lives ... — Stephen King

Those two songs condense the two albums. They also show what the audiences wanted. I was desperate to keep the band together and find something that the public would like. — Randy Bachman

We'll all be glad to see you die. No one's going to miss you, Gary. Maybe I'll walk behind you and spit on your brains after they blow them all over the road. Maybe I'll do that. Maybe we all will. It — Richard Bachman

Every night we all felt grateful to be there, stunned at the amount of people that are there, and stunned at their reactions. They go crazy; they know every lyric from eight years of age to eighty. It's unbelievable. — Randy Bachman

The definition of an asshole is a guy who doesn't believe what he's seeing. — Richard Bachman

The longer you went without speaking, the harder it gets to break the silence. — Richard Bachman

Herk threw up the mouse, the hamburger he'd eaten for lunch, and some pasty glop that looked like tomato soup. He was just starting to ask his mother what was going on when she threw up. And there, in all that puke, that old dead mouse didn't look bad at all. It sure looked better than the rest of the stuff. — Richard Bachman

My life has been a whole series of accidents, some of them happy, some not. — Randy Bachman

She had done it. O, amazing grace. The woman had looked into the abyss and then walked out across it. No net. No way back. Amazing. — Richard Bachman

For no reason at all, I thought of New Year's Eve, when all those people crowd into Times Square and scream like jackals as the lighted ball slides down the pole, ready to shed its thin party glare on three hundred and sixty-five new days in this best of all possible worlds. I have always wondered what it would be like to be caught in one of those crowds, screaming and not able to hear your own voice, your individuality momentarily wiped out and replaced with the blind empathic overslop of the crowd's lurching, angry anticipation, hip to hip and shoulder to shoulder with no one in particular. — Richard Bachman

You've got a shitty habit, you know it? I've noticed it on all those TV drive-safely pitches that you do. You breathe in people's ears. You sound like a stallion in heat, Philbrick. That's a shitty habit. You also sound like you're reading off a teleprompter, even when you're not. You ought to take care of stuff like that. You might save a life. — Richard Bachman

You take all the things that frighten you, and when you can get them to work for you all of sudden people are calling you a success. — Randy Bachman

You were starting to sound a little like a Stephen King novel for a while there, — Richard Bachman

I have chosen to keep my personal life separate from my music, as the two are exclusive from each other, and I want to remain that way. I'll talk music, production, writing songs, touring with anyone but keep religion, politics and world affairs off the table, as my expertise is in songs and music. — Randy Bachman

I learnt one thing in the past or in my life: the only person you can change is yourself, and it has to come from within. — Randy Bachman

Burton Cummings joining the Guess Who in January 1966 changed my life forever. It's been a rocky affiliation, no doubt. One journalist once described our relationship as the longest running soap opera in Canadian history. That may be a bit oversimplified. — Randy Bachman

The president said nothing about the views of government in regard to the possibility of Carolinas seceding. This however was frequently spoken of by other statesmen at the North. I think they were unanimous in this, that no army would be sent here. — John Bachman

They're animals, all right. But why are you so sure that makes us human beings? — Richard Bachman

You're on, Ted," I told him. "Your big chance, boy. Don't blow it. Folks, this kid is going to dance his balls off before your very eyes. — Richard Bachman

Jackie Bachman says, "Hey, you got your tits this summer!" And I roll my shoulders forward, the huge wrecking balls of that summer pressing their flesh on my hanging belly. "Shut up, bitch," I say. — Stacey Waite

Those albums are so important to me because, for the first time, I was making my own music, paying for it, finding strengths in it, and going through the process of finding the right music for the record. — Randy Bachman

I've only read three books by Stephen King. When I was 10 I read 'The Long Walk,' one of his pseudonymous Bachman books. In my early 20s, while trapped on a family vacation, I read 'The Dark Half,' which taught me a word I have never forgotten: psychopomp. Now I have read '11/22/63.' — Lev Grossman

The fact that the internet is so active; people can now speak to me indirectly. — Randy Bachman

I remember having my father stand over me when I had driven over my own foot; one leg was out of the car and one leg was in the car. He looked at me and told me that I was a drunk and that he was ashamed to call me his son. That night, I stopped drinking and I never drank again; I was twenty four. — Randy Bachman

I don't like the word 'rock star' or 'super star.' I am a guitar player, a songwriter who got lucky because I stayed at it and didn't give up, long enough that people noticed me. — Randy Bachman

I listened to it last night for the first time since we started this project. I went out to my car and put it in and went to an empty parking lot and just listened and read the little pamphlet that came with it. After two or three songs I burst into tears. — Randy Bachman

How many you or I have outlasted doesn't matter, I think. There comes a time when the will just runs out. Doesn't matter what I think, see? — Richard Bachman

If people just took it a day at a time, they'd be a lot happier. — Richard Bachman

If you think someone is seriously on the prod for your ass, it keeps you awake. — Richard Bachman

A woman's love is strange and cruel and nearly always clear-sighted, love that sees is always horrible love, and she knew walking away was right and so she walked, dismissing the cries as only another part of the boy's development, like smiles from gas or scraped knees. — Stephen King

Which one hadn't he walked down? Was it Barkovitch? Collie Parker? Percy What'shisname? Who was it? 'GARRATY!' the crowd screamed deliriously. 'GARRATY, GARRATY, GARRATY!'
Was it Scramm? Gribble? Davidson? A hand on his shoulder. Garraty shook it off impatiently. The dark figure beckoned, beckoned in the rain, beckoned for him to come and walk, to come and play the game. And it was time to get started. There was still so far to walk. — Richard Bachman

You'll be given a tape machine which is about the size of a box of popcorn. It weighs six pounds. With it, you'll be given sixty tape clips which are about four inches long. The equipment will fit inside a coat pocket without a bulge. It's a triumph of modern technology. — Richard Bachman

You can't always understand something just because you did it. — Richard Bachman

To add an AC outlet, for example, you just drill a circular hole in the wall, tap into the wiring, add the outlet and you're set. If you don't want it, pull it out and plaster over it with more earth to seal the hole. — Randy Bachman

July disappeared wherever used months go. Then half of August. Soon summer would be over. — Richard Bachman

Then you can blame it on your parents,' I said, smiling. 'Won't that be a relief? — Richard Bachman

If you yell about one woman, you're not a misogynist. If I yell about Michelle Bachman, that doesn't make me a misogynist. If I compare all women to Michelle Bachman, then I'm a misogynist. — Lewis Black

Any game looks straight if everyone is being cheated at once. — Richard Bachman

You don't have to have a great voice to sing, just a distinctive one. But make sure you say the words clearly and tell a story. — Randy Bachman

He left Molie's at ten past midnight, twelve hundred New Dollars lighter. The pawnbroker had also sold him a limited but fairly effective disguise: gray hair, spectacles, mouth wadding, plastic buck-teeth which subtly transfigured his lip line. "Give yourself a little limp, too," Molie advised. "Not a big attention-getter. Just a little one. Remember, you have the power to cloud men's minds, if you use it. Don't remember that line, do ya?" Richards didn't. — Richard Bachman

I never get tired of performing to people who want to hear me. Hell, that's my handshake to the world. I'm doing just what I've wanted to do since that day I was 15 and heard Lenny Breau play the guitar. — Randy Bachman

When you get successful, you can do pretty much whatever you want. — Randy Bachman

Lunacy is when you can't see the seams where they stitched the world together anymore. — Richard Bachman

When I pull into a city and I rent a car and it's Nashville, or it's London, or I'm driving in the taxi to the hotel, and on comes one of my songs, it's like, 'Oh my God, they're still playing these songs on the radio.' And you still feel tearful and very grateful that somebody still likes these songs that you made up. — Randy Bachman

When I was five I had violin lessons. — Randy Bachman

All places are the same unless your mind changes. There's no magic place to get your mind right. If you feel like shit, everything you see looks like shit. — Richard Bachman

turnpike itself. Garraty — Richard Bachman

He wondered how far his legs would carry him on their own - how long before his brain took over them and began punishing them, making them work past any sane limit, to keep a bullet from crashing into its own bony cradle. — Richard Bachman