Bruce Dickinson > Quotes

“Nothing in childhood is ever wasted.”
― Bruce Dickinson, What Does This Button Do?: An Autobiography

“Bullying happens because weak people need to prop up their ego by beating up or humiliating others.”
― Bruce Dickinson, What Does This Button Do?: An Autobiography

“If you dream something, it might happen. If you never dream it, it will never happen.”
― Bruce Dickinson

“Rock stars, of course, have long had the capacity to act like babies, but have not had the sense to sing like them.”
― Bruce Dickinson, What Does This Button Do?: An Autobiography

“All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without the benefit of experience.”
― Bruce Dickinson, What Does This Button Do?: An Autobiography

“We wrote this song called 'Flight of Icarus'. It's a Fable... It's about this bloke named Icarus, right, and one day he goes "'Ello, I think I'm gonna fly about!", so he builds some wings out of wax and feathers, right, and he goes flying about like a cunt through the air, right, and he goes up to this ball of fire called 'the sun' that hides obscured by the clouds over the UK, right... So he goes up to the ball of fire and the wings melt, 'cause they're made out of wax, right, so he goes plummetin', plummetin' down to the earth, and he fuckin' dies, right... alright, so we wrote this song called 'Flight of Icarus', right, and it's basically sayin' "Hey man, wake up! Don't go flyin' about near the sun unless you're in an airplane," right, 'cause the wings are metal, right, and they won't melt, right... So, here's a song that's workin' on two different levels at once, right... 'cause the wings of the plane are made out of metal, right... and we play Metal music, right... two dimensional, see? So Maiden's always thinking... Always thinking.”
― Bruce Dickinson

“Eddie is Iron Maiden's mascot, monster, alter ego - call it what you will. Part supernatural, part primal, part aggressive adolescent, Eddie is a super anti-hero with no backstory. Eddie doesn't give a fuck. He just is.

Eddie also gets us off the hook as individuals. Eddie is far bigger and more outrageous than any badly behaved superstar. Eddie makes rock stars obsolete. This comes in handy when you get to your late fifties and rather fancy a quiet night in after playing to 25,000 screaming metal fans.”
― Bruce Dickinson, What Does This Button Do?: An Autobiography

“I began to think of school as a prison camp, and my duty was to disrupt, subvert and/or escape. But, of course, there was no escape. I felt I should make some kind of statement. I decided to deliver two tons of horseshit to my housemaster. Just one of those spur-of-the-moment ideas that comes with no logic in tow, but a great deal of emotional momentum.”
― Bruce Dickinson, What Does This Button Do?: An Autobiography

“I had memorised Deep Purple’s Made in Japan note for note. Every drumbeat, every thud of Ian Paice’s bass-drum beater, I had tried to replicate. Ditto the first Black Sabbath album, Aqualung by Jethro Tull, plus my eccentric collection of Van der Graaf Generator albums and treasured copy of Wild Turkey’s first offering.”
― Bruce Dickinson, What Does This Button Do?: An Autobiography

“Life is too short to do things we don't love doing.”
― Bruce Dickinson

“In later years I discovered the Japanese expression often used in schools to describe an individual who was overly individualistic: ‘The nail that stands up is always hammered down.”
― Bruce Dickinson, What Does This Button Do?: An Autobiography

“Los seguidores de Iron Maiden están bastante acostumbrados a involucrar sus cerebros.”
― Bruce Dickinson, ¿Qué hace este botón? Una autobiografía

“started to read the excellent biography of Blake by Peter Ackroyd. I think it is one of the best of his books, the other being London: The Biography. I got the feeling that Ackroyd was almost channelling the spirit of Blake to rise from the pages and speak directly to the reader.”
― Bruce Dickinson, What Does This Button Do?: An Autobiography

“Where have you come from?’ she asked. ‘Sarajevo.’ ‘Why were you there?’ ‘Hey, we had a gig. We’re a rock band.’ ‘Sarajevo is a dangerous place. Never come back.”
― Bruce Dickinson, What Does This Button Do?: An Autobiography

“How long before I recover?'
Amen gave a good think to that one.
'I had an RAF fighter pilot sitting where you are now, with exactly the same tumour. It was 12 month before he was fit, fat and healthy again.'
Twelve month? That was too long. I would be bored by then.
'I'll beat that,' I declared.”
― Bruce Dickinson, What Does This Button Do?: An Autobiography

“.I caught a very frail Peter grant shortly before his death. He was in reflective mood, and not at all the monster people portrayed him during his seventies heyday. I always regretted deadlines in interviews. I hated the pressure of time. People need space to breathe and relax. That is when the truth is spoken, and you find that it's not the cardboard cut-out character that people expect”
― Bruce Dickinson

“Die meisten Rockstars mögen zwar auch im Erwachsenenalter noch in der Lage sein, sich wie Kleinkinder aufzuführen, sind aber leider unfähig, auch so zu singen.”
― Bruce Dickinson, What Does This Button Do?: An Autobiography

“I'd barely considered the question of whether I would sing again, which surprised me. I realised that I loved life above all else, and if singing was the price to pay then so be it.”
― Bruce Dickinson, What Does This Button Do?: An Autobiography

“Nothing lasts forever but the certainty of change.”
― Bruce Dickinson

“the BBC were obliged to play short extracts of the song through gritted teeth. It’s a shame they weren’t paying more attention to Jimmy Savile instead of writhing on the hook of a tongue-in-cheek horror-movie soundtrack.”
― Bruce Dickinson, What Does This Button Do?: An Autobiography

“A family trip to Jersey – that’s the Channel Islands, not New Jersey, folks – netted brand-new gatefold editions of Van der Graaf Generator classics H to He and Pawn Hearts. (The latter was such a manically depressive record that you could actually empty a room with it after a couple of minutes. On the other hand, I could listen to it for hours on end in solitary confinement, probably because I am not a manic depressive.)”
― Bruce Dickinson, What Does This Button Do?: An Autobiography

“It was a heart-stopping moment, and Donington’s collective jaw dropped. Grown men fought back tears. It was a Griffon-engine Spitfire, which has a distinctive growl, as opposed to the whistling howl of the supercharger on a Merlin engine. No one will ever forget that moment. It upstaged everything.”
― Bruce Dickinson, What Does This Button Do?: An Autobiography

“I had been asked to add a further three-hour rock show, but I protested that there wasn’t enough quality new music to sustain six hours a week.”
― Bruce Dickinson, What Does This Button Do?: An Autobiography

“The voice is a precious instrument, an emotional instrument. There is nothing between you and your audience. There is no guitar plank to hide behind, no giant stack of keyboards, no battery of tom-toms. There is nothing and no one to blame except yourself, and an audience will murder you and dance on your grave in a heartbeat if you let them.”
― Bruce Dickinson, What Does This Button Do?: An Autobiography

“I was out of my comfort zone, a fish out of water. My life has been a continual succession of 'out of the frying pan, into the fire' moments. Deep down, I think I probably enjoy it. You are never so alive as when learning something new and overcoming adversity.”
― Bruce Dickinson, What Does This Button Do?: An Autobiography