Who else could be “The Prince of Darkness” and a reality television show star other than Ozzy Osbourne? Well, the British-born vocalist of Black Sabbath helped define the genre of heavy metal. Whether he was biting the head off a bat or arguing with his wife Sharon on their MTV reality show, Ozzy is an icon of both music and pop culture.
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For the 74-year-old cunning, though often seemingly daft, singer, songs like “War Pigs” “Paranoid” and “Iron Man” have become part of the pop culture pastiche. But one might wonder, with all this success, what might Ozzy have to say candidly about the world around him?
What are his thoughts on life and love, his craft, and his famous family? Without further ado, here are the 20 best Ozzy Osbourne quotes.
1. “Of all the things I’ve lost I miss my mind the most.”
2. “All that stuff about heavy metal and hard rock, I don’t subscribe to any of that. It’s all just music. I mean, the heavy metal from the seventies sounds nothing like the stuff from the Eighties, and that sounds nothing like the stuff from the Nineties. Who’s to say what is and isn’t a certain type of music?”
3. “I got rabies shots for biting the head off a bat but that’s OK—the bat had to get Ozzy shots.”
4. “You gotta be really careful what you bite off. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. It’s a dangerous world.”
5. “I’m about caring, I’m about people, and I’m about entertaining people. I’m a family man. A husband. A father. I’ve been a lot of other things over the years, which we don’t really want to talk about.”
6. “Somebody said to me this morning, ‘To what do you attribute your longevity?’ I don’t know. I mean, I couldn’t have planned my life out better. By all accounts, I should be dead! The abuse I put my body through: the drugs, the alcohol, the lifestyle I’ve lived the last 30 years!”
7. “I’ll only retire in the day I should be dead and they have me buried, and some idiot spells over my casket some stupid gospel stuff.”
8. “It’s all part of my journey—I’ve done a lot of stupid things, but you learn by your mistakes.”
9. “Rock music is not meant to be perfect.”
10. “To be a liar, you’ve got to have a great memory, and I don’t have a memory.”
11. “I can’t do anything in moderation.”
12. “I have a genuine love affair with my audience. When I’m on stage they’re not privileged to see me. It’s a privilege for me to see them.”
13. “I am a raging alcoholic and a raging addict and I didn’t want to see my kids do the same thing.”
14. “When you’re young, you’re stupid. You do silly things.”
15. “I wish I didn’t have to perform ‘Iron Man’ every night.”
16. “I have a saying. ‘Never judge a book by its cover’. I say that because I don’t even know who Ozzy is. I wake up a new person every day.
17. “I knew it was time to get off of reality TV when someone asked me if I sang as well as acted.”
18. “L.A.’s not a good place to grow old.”
19. “I’m a very simple man. You’ve got to have, like, a computer nowadays to turn the TV on and off… and the nightmare continues.”
20. “I couldn’t be a royal. It’s like living in a supersonic goldfish bowl.”
Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images
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