David Bowie was a celebrated musician who remained extremely relevant in multiple music genres for over forty years. He passed away on January 10th, but his life will be long remembered through his music and the non-lyrical quotes he left for us. Here are some to help us guide our lives:

1.

I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise it won’t be boring.

2.

I always had a repulsive need to be something more than human. I felt very puny as a human. I thought, “Fuck that. I want to be a superhuman.”

3.

I think fame itself is not a rewarding thing. The most you can say is that it gets you a seat in restaurants.

4.

The truth is of course is that there is no journey. We are arriving and departing all at the same time.

5.

I’m not a prophet or a stone aged man, just a mortal with potential of a superman. I’m living on.

6.

I had to resign myself, many years ago, that I’m not too articulate when it comes to explaining how I feel about things. But my music does it for me, it really does. There, in the chords and melodies, is everything I want to say. The words just jolly it along. It’s always been my way of expressing what for me is inexpressible by any other means.

7.

I’ve never responded well to entrenched negative thinking.

8.

As you get older, the questions come down to about two or three. How long? And what do I do with the time I’ve got left?

9.

Sometimes you stumble across a few chords that put you in a reflective place.

10.

Confront a corpse at least once. The absolute absence of life is the most disturbing and challenging confrontation you will ever have.

11.

I’m very at ease, and I like it. I never thought I would be such a family-oriented guy; I didn’t think that was part of my makeup. But somebody said that as you get older you become the person you always should have been, and I feel that’s happening to me. I’m rather surprised at who I am, because I’m actually like my dad!

12.

Fame can take interesting men and thrust mediocrity upon them.

13.

Once I’ve written something it does tend to run away from me. I don’t seem to have any part of it – it’s no longer my piece of writing.

14.

I think it all comes back to being very selfish as an artist. I mean, I really do just write and record what interests me and I do approach the stage shows in much the same way.

15.

I’m well past the age where I’m acceptable. You get to a certain age and you are forbidden access. You’re not going to get the kind of coverage that you would like in music magazines, you’re not going to get played on radio and you’re not going to get played on television. I have to survive on word of mouth.

16.

But I’ve got to think of myself as the luckiest guy. Robert Johnson only had one album’s worth of work as his legacy. That’s all that life allowed him.

17.

I’ve always regretted that I never was able to talk openly with my parents, especially with my father. I’ve heard and read so many things about my family that I can no longer believe anything; every relative I question has a completely different story from the last.

18.

Questioning my spiritual life has always been germane to what I was writing. Always. It’s because I’m not quite an atheist and it worries me. There’s that little bit that holds on: ‘Well, I’m almost an atheist. Give me a couple of months.’