Roger Waters

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There is no 'us' and 'them'; it's an illusion. We are all human beings, and we all have a responsibility to support one another and to discover ways of wresting the power from the very, very few people who control all the cash and all the property.
- Roger Waters
Collection: Power
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I've only ever written about one thing in my life, which is the fact that we, as human beings, have a responsibility to one another and that it's important that we empathize with others, that we organize society so that we all become happier and we all get the life we really want.
- Roger Waters
Collection: Society
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I could have been an architect, but I don't think I'd have been very happy. Nearly all modern architecture is a silly game as far as I can see.
- Roger Waters
Collection: Architecture
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War is hugely profitable. It creates so much money because it's so easy to spend money very fast. There are huge fortunes to be made. So there is always an encouragement to promote war and keep it going, to make sure that we identify people who are 'others' whom we can legitimately make war upon.
- Roger Waters
Collection: Money
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I think there are things in my story that have helped my creativity. Your father being killed, for instance, is one of the best things that could happen to a kid if he's going to write poetry or songs.
- Roger Waters
Collection: Poetry
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Not the torturer will scare me, nor the body's final fall, nor the barrels of death's rifles, nor the shadows on the wall, nor the night when to the ground the last dim star of pain, is hurled but the blind indifference of a merciless, unfeeling world.
- Roger Waters
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I found that the loudest fans in the world are in Istanbul.
- Roger Waters
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I'm in competition with myself and I'm losing.
- Roger Waters
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I always used to look at books and wonder how anybody could come up with so many words. But my divorce and then falling in love with somebody else has released in me an ability to write in other ways apart from songs.
- Roger Waters
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Almost everybody thinks that the fight is about ideology. Everybody will tell you, 'Well, the fighting is all about the Middle East.' 'Well, it's about Muslims starting jihad.' 'It's about terrorism.' 'It's about this or that.' And no, it's not. It's about money.
- Roger Waters
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For an artist to go and play in a country that occupies other people's land and oppresses them, the way Israel does, is plain wrong. They should say no.
- Roger Waters
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You take the risk of being rejected.
- Roger Waters
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Either you write songs or you don't. And if you do write songs like I do, I think there's a natural desire to want to make records.
- Roger Waters
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To some extent, 'The Wall' is asking the question, 'Do you want a voice? And if you do, you better bloody well go out and get it because it's not going to be handed to you on a plate.'
- Roger Waters
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I confess I've never felt like a passenger.
- Roger Waters
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That's why I call the show 'Us & Them,' because I believe there is no 'them.' There's only 'us.'
- Roger Waters
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The United States has held out against taking part in any of the world consensus that there should be a court of human rights or that there should be an international court of criminal justice.
- Roger Waters
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When I first got a guitar, it was a Spanish, classical thing.
- Roger Waters
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We were contracted to make a soundtrack album but there really wasn't enough new material in the movie to make a new record that I thought was interesting.
- Roger Waters
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It's a miracle was the last track recorded for the album, we based it on the rhythm from the middle of 'Late Home Tonight, where there's Graham Broad playing lots and lots of drums with me shouting in the background, pretending to be a mad Arab leader.
- Roger Waters
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I would not rule out going to Israel because I disapprove of the foreign policy any more than I would refuse to play in the UK because I disapprove of Tony Blair's foreign policy.
- Roger Waters
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I have no problem with any question.
- Roger Waters
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Because a lot of people are hurting economically and being shafted by the very wealthy, it's been possible here in the United States of America to organize them and persuade them that to elect a nincompoop like Donald Trump is actually in their best interest. When clearly it isn't.
- Roger Waters
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We live in very volatile times. And it is super necessary that all of us resist this move toward the militarization and establishment of a more and more authoritarian regime, not just in the United States but in Europe and elsewhere.
- Roger Waters
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The United States has such an opportunity to be a leader in the world, and that opportunity has been frittered away.
- Roger Waters
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Long you live and high you fly. And smiles you'll give and tears you'll cry. And all you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be.
- Roger Waters
Collection: Life
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ashes or diamonds foe or friend we're all equal in the end
- Roger Waters
Collection: Death
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This is how you control your domestic population - by making people afraid and by identifying an enemy.
- Roger Waters
Collection: People
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There is no dark side of the moon really. Matter of fact it's all dark.
- Roger Waters
Collection: Dark
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Each small candle lights a corner of the dark.
- Roger Waters
Collection: Dark
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All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be.
- Roger Waters
Collection: Popular Song
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...why is an artist an artist? Artists simply do feel and see things in a different way to other people. In a way it's a blessing, but it can also be a terrible curse. There's a great deal of satisfaction to be earned from it but often it's also a terrible burden.
- Roger Waters
Collection: Artist
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Life is long. But it goes fast.
- Roger Waters
Collection: Long
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You take the risk of being rejected. If you have pretentions to be an artist of any kind, you have to take the risk of people rejecting you and thinking you're an arsehole.
- Roger Waters
Collection: Artist
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We are all brothers and sisters under the skin and above it . . . it's super important that we stop lobbing bombs over the top of the wall and start trying to dismantle it, so that we can say 'hi' to whoever is on the other side, whether the divide is religious or nationalistic or politic or economic.
- Roger Waters
Collection: Religious
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I was faced with a choice: to deny my addiction and embrace that 'comfortably numb' but 'magicless' existence, or accept the burden of insight, take the road less travelled, and embark on the often painful journey to discover who I was and where I fit.
- Roger Waters
Collection: Learning
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How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?
- Roger Waters
Collection: Meat
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All that you touch All that you see All that you taste All you feel. All that you love All that you hate All you distrust All you save. All that you give All that you deal All that you buy, beg, borrow or steal. All you create All you destroy All that you do All that you say. All that you eat And everyone you meet All that you slight And everyone you fight. All that is now All that is gone All that's to come and everything under the sun is in tune but the sun is eclipsed by the moon. "There is no dark side of the moon really. Matter of fact it's all dark.
- Roger Waters
Collection: Hate
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I had at one point this rather depressing image of some alien culture seeing the death of this planet - coming down in their spaceships and sniffing around; finding all our skeletons sitting around our TV sets and trying to work out why our end came before its time and they come to the conclusion that we amused ourselves to death.
- Roger Waters
Collection: Depressing
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You run and you run to catch up to the sun but it's sinking, racing around to come up behind you again.
- Roger Waters
Collection: Life
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What it comes down to for me is this: Will the technologies of communication in our culture, serve to enlighten us and help us to understand one another better, or will they deceive us and keep us apart?
- Roger Waters
Collection: Communication
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We don't need no thought control.
- Roger Waters
Collection: Needs
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In the finished article, the only thing that is important is whether it moves you or not. There is nothing else that is important at all.
- Roger Waters
Collection: Moving
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All in all you're just another brick in the wall
- Roger Waters
Collection: Wall
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Envy is the bond between the hopeful and the damned
- Roger Waters
Collection: Envy
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But that's not to say that the potential for the sun to shine doesn't exist. You know? Walk down the path towards the light, rather than walk into the darkness.
- Roger Waters
Collection: Light
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That one record changed everything for me. After Sgt. Pepper, it's the most influential record in the history of rock and roll. It affected Pink Floyd deeply, deeply, deeply. Philosophically, other albums may have been more important, like Lennon's first solo album. But sonically, the way the record's constructed, I think Music from Big Pink is fundamental to everything that happened after it.
- Roger Waters
Collection: Thinking
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Everybody's got somewhere they call home.
- Roger Waters
Collection: Home
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Wish You Were Here So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell, Blue skys from pain. Can you tell a green field From a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil? Do you think you can tell? And did they get you to trade Your heros for ghosts? Hot ashes for trees? Hot air for a cool breeze? Cold comfort for change? And did you exchange A walk on part in the war For a lead role in a cage? How I wish, how I wish you were here. We're just two lost souls Swimming in a fish bowl, Year after year, Running over the same old ground. What have we found? The same old fears. Wish you were here.
- Roger Waters
Collection: Running