"I'd like to be known for more than being the guy in the big suit."

"Sometimes it's a form of love just to talk to somebody that you have nothing in common with and still be fascinated by their presence."

"It didn't even occur to me that I'm the last person in the world who should play salsa or Brazilian music."

"I find rebellion packaged by a major corporation a little hard to take seriously."

"I subscribe to the myth that an artist's creativity comes from torment. Once that's fixed, what do you draw on?"

"That's the one for my tombstone... Here lies David Byrne. Why the big suit?"

"People in Latin America... love America from afar and emulate America in some ways but also hate a lot of things that America does to them."

"I never listen to the radio unless I rent a car."

"I read the NY Times but I don't trust all of it."

"I wanted to be a secret agent and an astronaut, preferably at the same time."

"To some extent I happily don't know what I'm doing. I feel that it's an artist's responsibility to trust that."

"Punk was defined by an attitude rather than a musical style."

"I'm afraid that everything will get homogenized and be the same."

"I like to combine the dramatic emotional warmth of strings with the grooves and body business of drums and bass."

"Real beauty knocks you a little bit off kilter."

"Television sounded really different than the Ramones sounded really different than us sounded really different than Blondie sounded really different than the Sex Pistols."

"The true face of smoking is disease, death and horror - not the glamour and sophistication the pushers in the tobacco industry try to portray."

"I'm guarded; I don't talk much."

"I try never to wear my own clothes, I pretend I'm someone else."

"I'm afraid that reason will triumph and that the world will become a place where anyone who doesn't fit that will become unnecessary."

"Architecture theory is very interesting."

"I didn't have any agenda or plan when I started writing stuff."

"I knew I wanted to have a doll of myself on the cover. I thought, I wanna see myself as a Ken doll."

"My favorite time of day is to get up and eat leftovers from dinner, especially spicy food."

"I couldn't talk to people face to face, so I got on stage and started screaming and squealing and twitching."

"It's not always been a happy marriage. I guess I wanted a quick fix."