Quotes

I resent the fact that a parental warning sticker has to be included on an album as cover art. To me that's censorship.

I don't want my reputation to take me over, I just want to be judged on my songs. I want people to come and see me because they want to, not because fashion dictates it. I don't belong in magazines, I belong on stage, in front of the audience, one-to-one. There's something that happens there. The rest is just crap.

I've always felt that the quality of the voice is where the real content of a song lies. Words only suggest an experience, but the voice is that experience.

I want to be ripped apart by music. I want it to be something that feeds and replenishes, or that totally sucks the life out of you. I want to be dashed against the rocks.

The Smiths hasn't been equaled. That goes for the composition of the songs, the lyrics, and the performance. What Johnny Marr and he [Morrissey] did was fabulous, nobody can beat that. If I'd ever start a rock band, I'd want to approximate that level.

Music is my mother and my father; it is my work and my rest...my blood...my compass...my love...

[About how he wants to be remembered] ...as a good friend. You know, I don't really need to be remembered. I hope the music's remembered.

I can overwhelm people with my feelings. It's been a problem of mine since I was a kid. I've got to write. It's an unspoken thing. I want to be loved for something I am. I'm easily hurt, which is why I know I can't pay attention to my press.

I used to be Scott Moorhead, until the time I was, I don't know, 10. Kids call you stuff like Scotty watty doo-doo snotty, Scotty potty, snot Dopehead. And I was sick of that. My mom had been long divorced from my step father, and I said, 'Who am I really, Ma?' So I took a look at the birth certificate, and it said Jeffrey Scott Buckley. I said, okay... I'm choosing who I am. Besides, it didn't help matters any, Buckley, Buttlick, Fuckley...

Music was like my first real toy. I was an only child for a while, and I was alone a lot of the time - and I liked it. I still like being alone.

If you're vulnerable by nature, then you can never be weak. It's impossible to sway you. You're just swayed.

It is very hard not to give in to one's negative feelings. Life is total chaos.

[on moving to New York] I just want to have a completely adventurous, passionate, weird life.

There's no difference for me between dream states and living. They both carry truth to them. I can read them both.

[Ray Rogers: People talk a lot about how handsome you are. Is it weird to have people drooling over you for how you look?] It's something I'm really wary of. On my record cover, you can barely see my face. I still think I look really geeky. The way you look doesn't mean shit if you can't sing, or if you're mean to people. It doesn't mean shit if you're not truthful with yourself. I have very different ideas about beauty than the rest of the world.

[on nonsmoking venues being novel in the early Nineties] Why do I have to breathe someone else's cigarette smoke when I'm playing?