I was a teenager, we were pretty much fully indoctrinated, thanks to sexual scare tactics. I remember so many public-health commercials with a B-actor in a fake alley background warning us to use protection or telling us the only real… — Michael Stipe Copy Share Image
I was vegetarian, trying to eat from fast-food restaurants without meat. I didn't know how to eat properly and I was starving. I was adrenalized to the eyeballs from performing. I was afraid that I was sick with AIDS. We… — 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
