I can't presume to speak for the others, but I never felt anything negative from anyone when I was onstage with Television. When I played rhythm behind Lloyd, the only thing that concerned me was to push him as hard as I could so that he'd go beyond what he was capable of and come up with something new, and vice versa. That's the only thing that mattered.

Tom Verlaine

I like thinking of myself as invisible. I find it a very advantageous way to live.

Tom Verlaine

invisible way-to-live thinking

You can't get so interested in just making sounds. The point of it all is some kind of expression.

Tom Verlaine

kind expression sound

I've got a quote for you, a good quote to describe Television...In madness there is order.

Tom Verlaine

madness order television

Everybody's out trying to be commercial. I'm not trying to be anything, really.

Tom Verlaine

trying

Practice? I never practice. I just write songs and take solos.

Tom Verlaine

practice writing song

It's like first grade where you make all your mistakes and people see it and yet some people see that there's something there that's really valuable. That's the way it went for more than 2 years almost 3 years of playing.

Tom Verlaine

mistake people years

I just don't like people coming up to me and saying something. It immediately makes you become insincere. There is no way you can react to it sincerely.

Tom Verlaine

sincerely people way

I think almost every woman artist I've ever met has this ideal of being in a partnership working situation with a man, that men don't seem to share. They seem to want this ideal thing, that we'll always be together and work together.

Tom Verlaine

artist men thinking

There were a lot of things I listened to, but so-called pop music never killed me, you know, the type of stuff that always seems to make it on the radio. The whole radio thing seems so... it's like they've accepted the whole "new wave" thing only because this kind of pop element came into it. In Europe they really love emotion, but here it's like, "let's stay away from it because we might cry or something".

Tom Verlaine

elements radio europe

The first time I met Patti Smith was in a laundromat. We knew some of the same people, including Richard Hell.

Tom Verlaine

hell people firsts

In Old English they don't say I had a dream, but there's another usage of the word - "life is but a dream," to be corny about it. It's implied with eyes wide open, rather than asleep. But I'm not a philosopher to explain myself. I wish I could. Maybe that's why I'm a musician.

Tom Verlaine

eye wish dream

I really don't have that much interest in stardom.

Tom Verlaine

stardom interest

When I think of 'influence', I think of 'influenza', like somebody's picked up a germ.

Tom Verlaine

germs influence thinking

I like thinking of myself as invisible. I find it a very advantageous way to live. Unfortunately, its not the way the music business works. If you don't create some kind of public image, it gets created for you.

Tom Verlaine

way-to-live business thinking

I'm not even sure who my audience is.

Tom Verlaine

audience

You know, there is something I'm looking for when I'm writing. But I couldn't tell you what that is.

Tom Verlaine

knows writing

I grew up taking piano lessons and liking Wagner when I was in second grade.

Tom Verlaine

piano lessons grew-up

With my records, it's just a matter of trying to create something fresh for myself in a very finite context, which is the pop song. I don't know anything about the people who buy my records, and what, if anything, they get out of them.

Tom Verlaine

what-if song people

I always like junkyards. All this metal piled up - they're filled with pathos, those places. Much more pathos than most of the music I've heard. You look at it, and there's more feeling, even though it's depressing, than there is in a lot of music I hear these days. A junkyard is what it is, whereas listening to a record by, say, Styx, is something else.

Tom Verlaine

depressing listening feelings

I've seen a lot of people getting into Jazzmasters because of me, and, well, people don't know what they're in for. I mean if you're looking for endless sustain, you're going to have to get it out of your hands (laughs). Because a saxophonist gets it out of his breath. You've got to work for it on the guitar - it means you have to pull it out of yourself, otherwise, what are you doing? You end up playing a lot of noise or scale exercises.

Tom Verlaine

guitar exercise mean