Best Black Sabbath Quotes & Sayings

Of the myriad impressive notables related to Dio's passing, perhaps foremost is the fact the man was 67 years old and was still making quality hard rock records, still touring with a new (old) version of Black Sabbath, still singing his absolute heart out about dragons and rainbows, making the infamous devil horns hand gesture he swiped from his Italian grandmother and which has since became the universal, undeniable, completely badass symbol for true metal across all galaxies everywhere, and for which Dio deserves to be ensconced in the heavens forevermore. — Mark Morford

You listen to Black Sabbath with Ronnie James Dio in it, and it's not Black Sabbath. They should have just called it 'Heaven and Hell' right from the beginning. Because you listen to that 'Heaven and Hell' album, that doesn't sound anything close to Black Sabbath. — Zakk Wylde

Of course, all during my childhood, would-be saviors tried to rescue my fellow tribal members. They wanted to rescue me. But, even then, I could only laugh at their platitudes. In those days, the cultural conservatives thought that KISS and Black Sabbath were going to impede my moral development. They wanted to protect me from sex when I had already been raped. They wanted to protect me from evil though a future serial killer had already abused me. They wanted me to profess my love for God without considering that I was the child and grandchild of men and women who'd been sexually and physically abused by generations of clergy. — Sherman Alexie

A critical faculty is a terrible thing. When I was eleven there were no bad films, just films I didn't want to see, there was no bad food, just Brussels sprouts and cabbage, and there were no bad books - everything I read was great. Then suddenly, I woke up in the morning and all that had changed. How could my sister not hear that David Cassidy was not in the same class as Black Sabbath? Why on EARTH would my English teacher think that 'The History of Mr Polly' was better than 'Ten Little Indians' by Agatha Christie? And from that moment on, enjoyment has been a much more elusive quality. — Nick Hornby

I never thought I could write anything or do a show sober, ever. But I did the Black Sabbath shows sober, and it was so much better fun for me, and everybody. — Ozzy Osbourne

Obviously [Black] Sabbath is definitely a huge name and of course deserving with Ozzy coming back. — John Petrucci

It seems to me that references to bands like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin meant more to me a year ago and all those old things are totally losing importance. — Billy Corgan

I got into Dio when I was still quite young. I remember seeing the video for 'Rainbow In The Dark' on MTV. That was my first taste of Dio. It wasn't until years later that I realized he had this whole career with Rainbow and Black Sabbath and even going back to Elf. When I saw that video, it instantly became one of my favorite songs. — Corey Taylor

When I was really young, I was really into Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden and those kinds of bands. — David Pajo

That's really the thing that got me into playing a lot - getting excited about playing along with my favorite bands like Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. — Chad Smith

I love Black Sabbath. They made an amazing contribution to music today. Almost every band that made it big in the Nineties owed a debt to them — Dave Grohl

Black Sabbath invented heavy metal, in my opinion. — Eddie Trunk

Maybe every other band in the world has more brains and deeper meaning, but only Black Sabbath sounds like exactly what my friends and I might have done if we'd had the equipment. — John Darnielle

Speaking of stage freight. I was terrified! It was in NOLA at an all ages show. I was wearing Jeans, a Van Halen t-shirt, and a bandana on my neck. Once I gripped that microphone stand, I did not let go! I plugged my microphone into a guitar FX pedal. Then at the end of the a Black Sabbath song we were covering, I hit the guitar pedal. It was horrific! — Phil Anselmo

Everybody knows that Black Sabbath started everything and almost every single thing that people are playing today has already been done by Black Sabbath. They wrote every single good riff ... ever. — Rob Zombie

There was so much good and different music back then and you'd just keep moving through it and discovering more new stuff. I went through my Black Sabbath phase before I even started playing guitar. — James Hetfield

A politician's Job they say is very high, for he has choose who has to go out and die. — Black Sabbath

I still think the best metal bands have a blues feel. The first Black Sabbath album is kind of a bludgeoning of blues. Deep Purple also started out as a blues band. — Greg Ginn

I got into one Metallica record. That was about it. I never got into AC/DC or Black Sabbath or any of that. I was interested in the side of heavy metal that had interesting guitar ideas, but that was a very short-lived thing. — M. Ward

For me, I've never talked about my private life. It's always been about Black Sabbath. It's strange to open up and talk about me as a young lad, my relationships, marriages and what not. — Tony Iommi

So when I got to be about 13 or 14, I started listening - even though my parents music was way cool - to contemporary hard rock at that time, which was Aerosmith, Cheap Trick, Black Sabbath, AC/DC, Ted Nugent and all that, and that's just where I came from. — Slash

Black Sabbath wasn't like the Bon Jovis of the time. We were just a bunch of guys that were against the grain of society. And we sung about things that people thought back then. — Ozzy Osbourne

I once asked Ozzy Osbourne, truly one of my favorite people in the world, if he was cool with singing Black Sabbath songs year after year, whether he was performing with Black Sabbath or out on a solo tour. He said it was great. — Henry Rollins

Black Sabbath - one of the world's universal language of music. I felt proud, for three or four minutes of my life combining my voice with Tony Iommi's guitar sound. — Henry Rollins

During our first meeting, Tony Iommi was a great jazz guitarist, his capabilities cover all styles - Black Sabbath has even narrowed his horizons. — Geezer Butler

I like The Beatles and I like The Kinks and I like The Rolling Stones and I like Led Zeppelin and I like Black Sabbath. — Rachel Trachtenburg

Then as I got older, I always gravitated towards the hard stuff, Born To Be Wild, then Black Sabbath. — Jello Biafra

It was always fun in the early days of Black Sabbath, when I stayed away from heavy drugs. Then someone gave me cocaine and I went, "Hallelujah!" I thought I'd found the meaning of life! — Ozzy Osbourne

We're trying to have the band create something beautiful that hopefully one day, 20 years from now, can be picked up by a kid and hopefully have the same effect that Neil Young had on me, or Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath. — Ville Valo

The world is filled with Kings and Queens,
Who blind your eyes, and steal your dreams. — Black Sabbath

'American Horror' goes for a very specific kind of Seventies suburban downer ambience - 'Flowers in the Attic' paperbacks, Black Sabbath album covers and late-night flicks like 'Let's Scare Jessica to Death.' It even has 'Go Ask Alice'-era urban legends. — Rob Sheffield

The Women in Black are Israeli Jews who meet wall in Jerusalem. They meet every Friday, the Sabbath evening, and pray. They begin by singing Kaddish for all the Israelis killed in the fighting in Israel that week. When they are finished, they pause and read all the names. Then, they turn again to face the wall and sing Kaddish again, this time for all of Palestinians killed in the fighting that week, and they turn when they are finished and once again recite the litany of the names of those killed. — Megan McKenna