By the time I was 18, I had absorbed punk rock from America, Britain, and the West Coast. All of it was so dark and weird and different and cool and hot and sexy and rebellious. It was a fist-in-the-air… — Michael Stipe Copy Share Image
At the [teenage] time, I did have an inkling of my sexuality. And I had an inkling that I was different from other people… — Michael Stipe Copy Share
I don't find R.E.M. to be nihilistic. There is a constant undertone of joyous optimism. I'm not going to kill myself to Patti Smith… — Michael Stipe Copy Share
I simply constructed a project to try to snap Kurt [Cobain] out of a frame of mind. I sent him a plane ticket and… — Michael Stipe Copy Share
I was vulnerable every day. Every night that I stepped on stage I was laying myself open. — Michael Stipe Copy Share
We're absolutely American and distinctly so, I think. That's part of what people respond to outside of this country, part of the reason that… — Michael Stipe Copy Share
[Columbia House] magazines were how I found out about the punk world going on in New York. Because of what I read, at the… — Michael Stipe Copy Share
I'm tired of being this solemn poet of the masses, the enigma shrouded in a mystery. — Michael Stipe Copy Share
Frankly I'm not great with heroin addicts. I tried heroin, but it was by accident. I'm not great with that level of substance abuse. — Michael Stipe Copy Share
The whole punk ethic was do-it-yourself, and I've always been very literal, especially as a kid. When they said that anybody can do this,… — Michael Stipe Copy Share
They spoke truth and a lot of people listened… that voice, Kurt we miss you. — Michael Stipe Copy Share
A wise man once said-'the skill in attending a party is knowing when it's time to leave,' — Michael Stipe Copy Share
Anything you do as a group is fraught with compromise... But everyone 's got to do that, right? It's part of being a good… — Michael Stipe Copy Share
To be called an elder statesman is so unbelievably insulting. Brad Pitt is exactly three years younger than me. — Michael Stipe Copy Share
