Russell Brand's Quotes & Sayings

Democracy is a gleaming Excalibur - let's not use it just to mend the toaster. — Russell Brand

Managing wildlife? It's wild! It don't need managing, leave it alone. — Russell Brand

Consciousness exists beyond your head, between our heads, and it can manifest harmony. — Russell Brand

It was in these sessions that I first came across the "To my shame" technique ... You can get away with any admission, however appalling, so long as it's preceded by the words "to my shame."
... The self-accusatory prefix robs the listener of the right to disapprove ...
SANS "TO MY SHAME."
I used to exploit women because I couldn't cope with being alone ...
CORRECT RESPONSE. He didn't say "to my shame!" You bastard! You viscious selfish bastard.
It's like "Simon Says" for junkies. — Russell Brand

My dad's philosophy was (and I think still is) that life is a malevolent force, which seeks to destroy you, and you have to struggle with it. Only those who are hard enough will succeed. Most people get crushed, but if you fight, in the end life will go, Fucking hell. This one's serious. Let him through. — Russell Brand

Total revolution of consciousness and our entire social, political and economic system is what interests me, but that's not on the ballot. — Russell Brand

Perhaps if we could popularise through the techniques of branding and consumerism, a different idea, a different narrative, perhaps the world can change. After all it changes constantly and incessantly, it's just the perceptions that we have are governed by people with self-interest and are not inalignment with the health and safety of us as individuals or as a planet. — Russell Brand

It's highly psychological, and very beautiful, and overwhelming, and real, and trippy! — Russell Brand

I'm not better than you; I'm just different than you in a way that's better. — Russell Brand

The temptation for a new generation, however, could be to see Baptist identity as a nuisance in the quest for converts. The effort to minimize an offensive "denominational brand name" will be counterproductive if we produce a generation of "anonymous Baptists," those whom we believe cannot handle the truth about Christ's design for His church. It will be tragic indeed if a future Broadman and Holman catalog includes a book titled, "Why I Am a Community Church (SBC) member."
But it will be equally tragic if the volume is titled, "Why I Want to Be a Presbyterian, but the Bible Won't Let Me. — Russell D. Moore

I suppose I'm qualified to some degree to speak about the nature of contemporary media, as that's where I currently work. People, I think have been beyond trained - coded to not anticipate change; to think that change is implausible. Almost weaned off. It had to be a revolution bred out of us. — Russell Brand

Compare Russell Brand with Mark Levin. My politics align more with Levin, but Brand still makes me giggle. And I hate his politics. He's a piece of hairy dog shit, but he's quick-witted - and that makes him a persuasive piece of hairy dog shit. — Greg Gutfeld

An astronomer once explained to me that the galaxy we live in, the Milky Way, is vast, too vast to be understood without metaphor, so he gave me one. He said if you picture the Milky Way as being the size of mainland Europe, our solar system - that's Mars, Venus, Saturn, us here on Earth (you remember from school) - in a Milky Way the size of Europe our solar system would fit inside a single teacup somewhere in Belgium. He paused for my amazement, which I duly offered. But really what can you say? "Ooh, a teacup." "Blimey, Belgium." "Cor, it makes you think, doesn't it?" Then he added, clearly sensing I was at a bit of a loss for words, having just been reduced to a dot on a speck in a teacup in a continent: "Russell, there are 400 million KNOWN galaxies in our universe. — Russell Brand

What was so painful about Amy's death is that I know that there is something I could have done. I could have passed on to her the solution that was freely given to me. Don't pick up a drink or drug, one day at a time. It sounds so simple; it actually is simple but it isn't easy; it requires incredible support and fastidious structuring. — Russell Brand

It seems to me that actual democracy is where all of us get to participate and it's not just a sort of a blunt little dry hump in a ballot box, but an actual penetrative process. — Russell Brand

Eckhart Tolle says, "Addiction begins with pain and ends with pain," meaning that pain is behind compulsive behavior. Eleven years clean, I still feel the urge to medicate pain. Whenever events don't go my way, my first instinct is to annul the feeling, to look for an external resource to solve the problem. The second part of Eckhart's edict kicks in here - addiction "ends with pain." Medication of any kind offers only a temporary solution; it always leads back to pain and becomes therefore predictably cyclical. — Russell Brand

Mark Twain, the thinking man's Colonel Sanders, reputedly said, America is New York, New Orleans, and San Francisco. Everywhere else is Cleveland. — Russell Brand

The greatest poverty one can have is to be poor in one's heart and for falling in love, he is truly happy. He discovers purpose. — Russell Brand

When you're married, it's one person. That's one more than a monk. It's not that different. — Russell Brand

I don't like to be in delineated moments. I don't like it when your reality feels prescriptive. I don't like Christmas holidays and their pseudo-joy. I don't like New Year's Eve. I don't like anything that feels like an established electromagnetic paradigm is pulling you into it's cliched forebear's footsteps. — Russell Brand

If anybody needs any help with anything, I'm prepared to help. — Russell Brand

I've come off heroin twice, and the worst part is laying in bed kicking and not being able to keep still. The physical withdrawal doesn't last that long, but then it's just all psychological. I think it's worse than cigarettes. — Russell Brand

I used to quite fancy Russell Brand, but I'm not sure if it's just because he's funny. He's definitely got something and I can't just switch all that off because of one stupid moment. I fancy Barack Obama too, which is a wrong crush, isn't it? He's a married man, and he's quite old, but he looks young, so he's fair game. — Konnie Huq

When I first became famous in the United Kingdom it was helpful because it meant there wasn't a spite of 'this bloke's a drug addict,' 'this bloke f**ks all these women' because I was just making jokes about all those things already, so it made me some kind of incorruptible indefatigable, indestructible force. — Russell Brand

In the U.S., the 400 richest people have as much as 185 million people, over 60 percent of the population. As absurd as that is, on a global scale, the richest 85 people have as much as 3.5 billion people, half of humanity! — Russell Brand

Maybe a life of devotion doesn't need to be robes and chanting; maybe it's just going through life with open eyes and an open mind, looking out for chances to help people and buzz on the altruistic zip it gives, like coins in Mario Land. — Russell Brand

Russell Brand has announced that he plans to write a series of children's books. First up: 'Horton Hears a Heroin Dealer.' — Joan Rivers

To this day, I feel a fierce warmth for women that have the same disregard for the social conventions of sexual protocol as I do. I love it when I meet a woman and her sexuality is dancing across her face, so it's apparent that all we need to do is nod and find a cupboard. — Russell Brand

I really, really love children and I think probably among children is when I feel mostly berated. It's not like I feel like oh, there's some children here. I have to tone it down. I go nuts with children especially when I ain't got none. So when I'm round my mates' children, I jest them kids up first. I swear at them, I get more worked up, I say crazy stuff to them, fill their heads with nonsense and then I leave them. — Russell Brand

Spurred by Amy's death I've tried to salvage unwilling victims from the mayhem of the internal storm and am always, always just pulled inside myself. — Russell Brand

The world isn't made of atoms, it's made of stories. — Russell Brand

You've seen their logo - it's an apple with a bite taken out of it. That bite is the symbol of the moment mankind broke their pact with God, transgressed their own innocent nature, and chewed into consuming and consumerism. We have externalized all wonder, materialized our inherent magic. — Russell Brand

People have always said, are you gay? I've had a lot of that. But it's just not in me. I really like women a lot; I'm repulsed by men sexually. — Russell Brand

If you were to ask the developers of Lakeside or any shopping center what they are offering consumers (formerly known as "people") they'd say, "It's all under one roof" - great, a ceiling, and, more importantly, "choice." Choice is the key. Apparently, then, what excited me as a bulimic Smiths fan and onanist was the possibility of choice, and for anybody to be stimulated by the idea of choice, the precondition must be a lack of choice. Which is a way of saying a lack of power, a lack of freedom. — Russell Brand

Have you been out in society recently? 'Cause it's SHIT. — Russell Brand

For me happiness occurs arbitrarily: a moment of eye contact on a bus, where all at once you fall in love; or a frozen second in a park where it's enough that there are trees in the world. — Russell Brand

I think many of the boundaries that convention has placed upon us are arbitrary, so we can fiddle with them if we fancy. Gravity's hard to dispute, and breathing, but a lot of things we instinctively obey are a lot of old tosh. — Russell Brand

I know that's the sort of thing people say and I really hate it when people say the sort of things people say. I always think, 'You don't mean that, you just think it sounds good. — Russell Brand

Socialism isn't a dirty word; it just means sharing. Really, it's just the bureaucratic arm of Christianity. — Russell Brand

I keep hearing in my head "you are the Messiah, you are the Messiah". I think there's something wrong with my headphones. — Russell Brand

Princeton University recently did a study revealing what those of us paying attention already know all too well: The United States is, in scientifically proven fact, not a democracy. They concluded that the U.S. is controlled by economic elites. This is a prominent idea that is becoming popular. The structural reason that voting is redundant is that through the funding of political parties, lobbying, and cronyism, corporations are able to ensure that their interests are prioritized above the needs of the electorate and that ideas that contravene their agenda don't even make it into the sphere of public debate. Whoever you vote for, you'll be voting for a party that represents a big-business agenda, not the will of the people. — Russell Brand

In Maslow's pyramid of needs, Abraham Maslow demonstrates the hierarchy of human requirements, most basic at the bottom, in a diagram. If you ask me, putting people's most basic requirements in a pyramid is bloody exclusive in the first place.They're extremely difficult to build, only pharoahs are allows in them and Indiana Jones was very nearly killed trying to get the treasure out. — Russell Brand

People do this a lot. They don't seem to realise that the future is just like now, but in a little while, so they say they're going to do things in anticipation of some kind of seismic shift in their worldview that never actually materialises. But everything's not going to be made of leather, the world won't stink of sherbet. Tomorrow is not some mythical kingdom where you'll grow butterfly wings and be able to talk to animals - you'll basically feel pretty much the same way you do at the moment. — Russell Brand

My modus operandi is that I'll be content with anything, as long as I know that it's the best that's possible. — Russell Brand

What should happen is a little voice in your head, like Jimmy Cricket in Pinocchio, will go 'But Russell, that bird, that's a creature like you, if you kill it it'll be all sad' and you go 'F***, alright. I won't kill it then.' — Russell Brand

In this [show] business you do something rock 'n' roll and then that's it, finished, heads roll. It's best not to take drugs, go to sex dungeons or cause controversy. And those who've done it - Russell Brand, Angus Deayton, whoever - they've really paid for it, even if what they've done is quite trivial. — Konnie Huq

I've always been a 'your parents have got to come up to the school' type of person. Even now, when I do something wrong - if I say something inappropriate on a live tv show, for example - I half expect to have to deliver a note to Barbara Brand: 'Please come up to Channel 4 head office, Russell's done something despicable. — Russell Brand

That's what keeps me alive, perversion and star quality. — Russell Brand

Anything you don't want discard, anything that hurts let go. None of it's real you know, all that pain, all that regret, all that doubt, not thin enough, not a good enough mum, not a good enough son, not a good enough bum. You are enough, you're enough. there's nothing you can buy or try on that's going to make you any better, because you couldn't be any better than you are. — Russell Brand

The most insightful thing I ever heard, was overheard. I was waiting for a rail replacement bus in Hackney Wick. These two old women weren't even talking to me - not because I'd offended them, I hadn't, I'd been angelic at that bus stop, except for the eavesdropping. Rail replacement buses take an eternity, because they think they're doing you a favour by covering for the absent train, you've no recourse.
Eventually the bus appeared, on the distant horizon, and one of the women, with the relief and disbelief that often accompanies the arrival of public transport said, 'Oh look, the bus is coming.' The other woman - a wise woman, seemingly aware that her words and attitude were potent and poetic enough to form the final sentence in a stranger's book - paused, then said, 'The bus was always coming. — Russell Brand

There's no biological reason why a man shouldn't just try to have sex with every woman he meets - all of them get pregnant and your genetics are winning. — Russell Brand

It's difficult to believe in yourself because the idea of self is an artificial construction. You are, in fact, part of the glorious oneness of the universe. Everything beautiful in the world is within you. No one really feels self-confident deep down because it's an artificial idea. Really, people aren't that worried about what you're doing or what you're saying, so you can drift around the world relatively anonymously: you must not feel persecuted and examined. Liberate yourself from that idea that people are watching you. — Russell Brand

The right to free speech is important but it isn't as important as 'we're all human beings together, let's find solutions together.' — Russell Brand

I've never had a sustained period of medication for mental illness when I've not been on other drugs as well. It's just not something that I particularly feel I need. I know that I have dramatically changing moods, and I know sometimes I feel really depressed, but I think that's just life. I don't think of it as, "Ah, this is mental illness," more as, "Today, life makes me feel very sad." I know I also get unnaturally high levels of energy and quickness of thought, but I'm able to utilize that. — Russell Brand

Amy Winehouse - her surname's beginning to sound like a description of her liver. — Russell Brand

It doesn't matter how many pairs of shoes you have, how many cars you have, etc ... It's all utterly meaningless and yet we continue to pursue this. Why? Because they've learned they can stimulate our primal desires through selling us products. — Russell Brand

What I liked about it is in the world of children, there are very, very different rules and a kind of naivete and innocence and sweetness that's been beautifully captured, I think, by this film as you can even see [gesturing toward the film's poster on display nearby] from this gorgeous artwork. — Russell Brand

The revolution that's required isn't a revolution of radical ideas, but the implementation of ideas we already have. — Russell Brand

Life's never a postcard of life, is it? It never feels like how you'd want it to look. — Russell Brand

I've been wanting to tell people my theory about what goes on after time. It's beyond our consciousness. We get glimpses of it between the infrared and the ultraviolet - the narrow narrow corridor of light that we are able to perceive. — Russell Brand

I've always had a bit of a feminine aura, but I don't mind. Russell Brand has one, too. — John Duover

I think, you're not blagging me on this ridiculous journey, with this bit of paper. I think if you want to change things, it's not with an X on a piece of paper, it's with an X on someone's forehead. — Russell Brand

When people are content they are difficult to manoeuvre. We are perennially discontent and offered placebos as remedies. — Russell Brand

The thing for me is, what if one returns to these maxims, these rather simplistic maxims "Be the change you want to see in the world." Because what canvas have we but the self for these kind of explorations, ultimately. — Russell Brand

Even as a junkie I stayed true [to vegetarianism] - 'I shall have heroin, but I shan't have a hamburger.' What a sexy little paradox. — Russell Brand

How long is it polite to continue to be interested in what someone says after they reveal they've got a boyfriend? — Russell Brand

People don't realize that the future is just now, but later. — Russell Brand

When you bump into your own mom at an orgy, it's hard not to get her to read into certain things. — Russell Brand

The reason they don't explain this to us is because they know that if we find out the extraordinary lengths that they're going to to fuck us over, we will overthrow the current system and replace it with something fair. That's why all this important stuff is made to seem inaccessible, boring, and abstract. That is why our participation in politics has been sanded down into an impotent nub. Stick your "X" into this box and congratulate yourself on being free. — Russell Brand

The Holy Spirit ain't got a pen. — Russell Brand

Revolt in whatever way we want, with the spontaneity of the London rioters, with the certainty and willingness to die of religious fundamentalists or with the twinkling mischief of the trickster ... Take to the streets, together, with the understanding that the feeling that you aren't being heard or seen or represented isn't psychosis; it's government policy. — Russell Brand

Turns out it was mostly a lie. But, at least for a short while, it was a beautiful one. — Russell Brand

I know change is possible, I know there is an alternative, because I live a completely different life to the one I was born with. I also know that the solution is not fame or money or any transient adornment of the individual. The only Revolution that can really change the world is the one in your own consciousness, and mine has already begun. — Russell Brand

I don't see why someone should lose their life just so you can have a snack. — Russell Brand

Don't listen to me. I'm a maniac, but the voice in your head, ask it "Is it right to kill 200 million animals simply for fun?". What did it say? Right. There you go. — Russell Brand

I recognize that I have the ability to be selfish, but I also recognize that you can't be happy if you only care about yourself at the expense of other people. — Russell Brand

The most potent tool in maintaining the status quo is our belief that change is impossible. — Russell Brand

I do transcendental meditation, which is, I suppose, derived from Vedic or Ayurvedic principles, which is sort of Hindu principles. — Russell Brand

I really love to be with people. It's nice, that. To have achieved sudden intimacy with strangers is perhaps the most human thing you can do. We all love our friends and families, as much as we hate them. When you can achieve intimacy with strangers, it's very exciting and heartening. — Russell Brand

I don't know if this is the kind of retrospective analysis that people are fond of applying to their work or actions, but it feels like I knew I was going to be famous and I knew that an element of that would be traumatic, so that if I could make myself something big and otherworldly, it would be a kind of defence. — Russell Brand

WHEN I STILL USED, I WAS ONCE WORKING IN IBIZA, HEDONISM capital of the nineties and the turn of the millennium. People swayed in sweaty swathes and stayed, pilled-up for days. I couldn't participate, because I was too shy or broken, caught on some taut barbed wire in my mind. Me and my mate Matt, high one night, lost ourselves, found ourselves in a wood and pretended to be animals. It was just us, and we prowled and circled around. We locked eyes and growled and danced. "Let's pretend we're animals" was forgotten, and we were animals. We are animals. We are free animals with a divine spark, we're not in a farm or a zoo or a theme park, we're free. We've forgotten that we're free. — Russell Brand

Today's 'Sesame Street' will NOT be brought to you by the number 34 or the letter D. — Russell Brand

Normally, I'm good at first dates, 'cause that's the only date I ever have, so I know how to control it and be confident. — Russell Brand

God is in the mountains. Impassive, immovable, jagged giants, separating the celestial from the terrestrial with eternal diagonal certainty. As if silently monitoring the beating heart of the creator from the universe's perfect birth. Stood in the thin air and the awe, one inhales God, involuntarily acknowledging that we are but fragments of a whole, a higher thing. The mountains remind me of my place, as a servant to truth and wonder. Yes, God is in the mountains. Perhaps the pulpit too and even in the piety of an atheist's sigh. I don't know; but I feel him in the mountains. — Russell Brand

It's always funny until someone gets hurt.
Then it's just hilarious. — Bill Hicks

It's no wonder Bob Geldof knows so much about famine - he's been dining out on I Don't Like Mondays for 30 years, — Russell Brand

If love is something you cherish, it is hard to glean much joy from death, even in one's enemies. — Russell Brand

You shouldn't eat animals, it's mean to them, — Russell Brand

For me, it's standard. I don't feel irresponsible for telling kids not to vote; I feel like I deserve a Blue Peter badge for not telling them to riot. For not telling them that they are entitled to destroy the cathedrals of tyranny erected to mock them in the heart of their community. That they should rise up and destroy the system that imprisons them, ignores them, condemns and maligns them. By any means necessary. — Russell Brand

There's an interconnectivity between what's in the consciousness of cat and what's in the consciousness of us. — Russell Brand

It was crushingly disappointing as a fan of The Simpsons to discover that it's just you in a room speaking into a microphone. I thought I was going to become friends with Homer Simpson, but unfortunately none of them are real. — Russell Brand

The happiest moments in our life aren't "Oh I got a new hat or a wonderful silvery object, some glistening bauble." But it's when you connect with another human being. If you can find the $18 in your pocket, you are purchasing dreams with that money. — Russell Brand

If you feel how I felt, I have been taught a few techniques that might help you. Here's one for a kick-off: You have to forgive everyone for everything. You can't cling on to any blame that you may be using to make sense of the story of your life. Even me with my story of one nan that I love and another that I don't - that story is being used to maintain a certain perspective of mine, a perspective that justifies the way I am, and by justifying the way I am I ensure that I stay the same. I'm no longer interested in staying the same; I'm interested in Revolution, that means I have to go back and change the story of my childhood. — Russell Brand

Anyone who's been poor and gets rich is stalked by guilt and fear. Guilt because you know it isn't fair, that life hasn't changed for everyone — Russell Brand

I liked Bugs Bunny. He was pretty good. He's annoying as a duck and he's anti-proletarian. Daffy Duck I couldn't see what was going on with him. He seemed like he was angry about something. My favorite one though is Pinocchio. I liked that kid. He was made of wood. I liked that for a start. I also liked how he'd tell a lie and his nose would grow. I liked the morality of that. — Russell Brand

We're naked under our clothes; we both know what it's like to need to fart and hold it in, or not be able to get a hard-on, or worry that a bloke across the room might be looking at your bird and you might have to fight him but he looks well hard. — Russell Brand

Invisible violence in Pakistan, violence against brown people, ongoing violence in Iraq - that's got to be quantified in the same way as the cinematic glamorous violence that happens in recognisable cities. — Russell Brand

I'm a recovering drug addict, so it's not a subject that I take lightly, but I do agree that the criminalization of narcotics is the deliberate inhibition of human consciousness. — Russell Brand

See all these buildings, Russell? All these buildings were once a drawing on a piece of paper, and before that they were an idea in someone's head. Any idea that you have, you can make manifest. — Russell Brand

The economy is just a metaphorical device, it's not real-that's why it's got the word "con" in the middle of it. — Russell Brand