Al Yankovic's Quotes

It becomes more important to me as time goes on to make every album the best thing I've ever done, so it's a lot of self-imposed pressure that also kind of slows me down a bit.

It's hard to really articulate what the parameters are that make one song parody-able and another song not, but if I can come up with a good enough idea for it, I go for it, and if not, then I have to move on.

Like, I have had moments, which I think most people have, where you'll be watching TV, and it'll be interrupted by some tragic event, and you'll actually find yourself thinking, 'I don't want to hear about this train being derailed! What happened to 'The Flintstones?''

One of my pet peeves is that sometimes the talents of my band get overlooked because, and it was the same problem that Frank Zappa had, with a lot of groups that use humor, people don't realize there's a lot of craft behind the comedy.

One of the hardest things I've had to deal with in my career is keeping my material topical even though I only release albums every three or four years.

So that's why one of my rules of parody writing is that it's gotta be funny regardless of whether you know the source material. It has to work on its own merit.

Somebody will come up to me after a show and have me sign their arm, and the next time I see them my autograph has been permanently inscribed on their arm.

What kind of morons do you have working at newspapers in Austin that would base an entire review of an artist's performance on whether or not they had a good seat?

I don't really look at myself as the kind of person who craves attention, but I've never been to therapy so there's probably a lot of stuff about myself that I don't know.

As my father used to tell me, the only true sign of success in life is being able to do for a living that which makes you happy.

How can you get bored if the audience is cheering and laughing at something you're doing?

A lot of artists have really been supportive over the years.

A lot of rap songs don't usually have a lot of melody per se.

As a kid, I certainly never thought I would get to spend my life doing something fun.

As it turns out, there is a thing called the Internet, and stuff does go out there whether the suits like it or not.

As much as people are griping about the Internet taking sales away from artists, it's been a huge promotional tool for me.

By the time I'm in the studio recording my parody, 10,000 parodies of that song are on YouTube.

I can't get too offended when somebody parodies me.

I don't think there are any new media I'd like to cover.

I have a long-standing history of respecting artists' wishes.

I know now that everything I write, I'm going to put out, and I'll have to live with it for the rest of my life.

I like the guitar-driven music of Nirvana at its peak. At that point, I thought there was a lot of really exciting music coming out.

I mean, I don't write for kids.

I mean, I hate to gloat, but I'm extremely satisfied with my position in life and the way things have worked out for me.

I think that nerds, if you want to call them that, have only gotten more hip and assimilated into the culture.

I'm obviously not a rapper, and I don't have any claims to be one, really.

I'm still a geek on the inside, that's the important thing.

I'm very analytical, I'm very precise.

I'm watching the charts every week and hoping something will pop into my head.

I've done a movie and a TV series, and someday I'd like to do a successful movie and a successful TV series. That would be nice.

I've learned how to use my spam filter pretty effectively.

If something is good enough, it can be out there and people will see it.

In the '80s, I was putting out an album virtually every year, I think mostly based on fear - that if I didn't, people would soon forget about me.