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“By the second week of November 1990, a new character had begun to spring forth in Kurt's journal writings, and this figure would soon make its way into almost every image, song, or story. He intentionally misspelled its name, and in doing so he was granting it a life of its own. Oddly, he gave it a female persona, but since it became his great love that Fall - and even made him throw up, just like Tobi - there was a fairness in this gender choice. He called it 'heroine'.”
― Charles R. Cross, Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain

“KURT DANIELSON: [Kurt Cobain] was the most gifted and cursed. And also the most ferocious, innocent, and nicest. A bundle of extremes and opposites.”
― greg prato, Grunge Is Dead: The Oral History of Seattle Rock Music

“Dear Producers,
Something is radiating deep within me and it must be transmitted or I will implode and the world will suffer a great loss, unawares. Epic are the proportions of my soul, yet without a scope who cares am I? This is why I must but must be one of the inhabitants of MTV's "Real World." Only there, burning brightly into a million dazzled eyes, will my as yet uncontoured self assume the beauteous forms that are not just its own, but an entire market niche's, due.

I am a Kirk Cameron-Kurt Cobain figure, roguishly quirky, dandified but down to earth, kooky but comprehensible; denizen of the growing penumbra between alternative and mainstream culture; angsty prophet of the already bygone apocalypse, yet upbeat, stylish and sexy!

Oscar Wilde wrote, "Good artists exist in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are. A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating... [they] live the poetry [they] cannot write." As with Dorian Gray, life is my art! Oh MTV, take me, make me, wake me from my formless slumbers and place me in the dreamy Real World of target marketing.”
― Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

“He had the desperation, not the courage, to be himself. Once you do that, you can’t go wrong, because you can’t make any mistakes when people love you for being yourself. But for Kurt, it didn’t matter that other people loved him; he simply didn’t love himself enough.”
― Charles R. Cross, Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain

“But every time an artist dies young, Kurt Cobain or whatever, it's always the people -- "It's so sad, he had so much more to give." How do you know? Maybe he was out of shit. He got all the money, he did all the drugs, he fucked all your holes, and that's the American Dream. And when you're done with that, you go, "Oh, that's why they call it a dream. It's bullshit. I'm still empty.”
― Doug Stanhope

“TRACY MARANDER: [Kurt Cobain] was a really good artist. He would draw cartoons with funny sayings. I have this huge picture of this homeless guy, and it’s a satirical thing on how homeless people are mentally ill, they’re alcoholics, they had messed up childhoods — but they’re expected to fend for themselves in a box in the snow.”
― Greg Prato, Grunge Is Dead: The Oral History of Seattle Rock Music

“Its like what Kathleen said about how in school there was this class that you went to and they were teaching the girls how to prepare themselves for rape and when you looked outside and saw the rapers outside playing football and you said "they are the ones who should be in here being taught not to rape".”
― Kurt Cobain, Journals

“m such a nihilistic jerk half the time. I’m so fucking sarcastic at times and then at other times I’m still vulnerable and so sincere. That’s pretty much how every song comes out — it’s like a mixture of both of them, and that’s pretty much how people my age are. I’m just as pissed off about the things that made me pissed off a few years ago. I’m pissed off about everything in general so all these songs are pretty much about my battle with the things that piss me off.”
― Kurt Cobain, Come As You Are Sheet Music

“My mother used to say that if I couldn’t sleep I should count something that matters, anything but sheep. Count stars. Count Mercedes-Benzes. Count U.S. presidents. Count the years you have left to live. I might jump out the window, I thought, if I couldn’t sleep. I pulled the blanket up to my chest. I counted state capitals. I counted different kinds of flowers. I counted shades of blue. Cerulean. Cadet. Electric. Teal. Tiffany. Egyptian. Persian. Oxford. I didn’t sleep. I wouldn’t sleep. I couldn’t. I counted as many kinds of birds as I could think of. I counted TV shows from the eighties. I counted movies set in New York City. I counted famous people who committed suicide: Diane Arbus, the Hemingways, Marilyn Monroe, Sylvia Plath, van Gogh, Virginia Woolf. Poor Kurt Cobain. I counted the times I’d cried since my parents died. I counted the seconds passing. Time could go on forever like this, I thought again. Time would. Infinity loomed consistently and all at once, forever, with or without me. Amen.”
― Ottessa Moshfegh, My Year of Rest and Relaxation

“Here's a note to the parents of addicted children: choose your music carefully. Avoid Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World", from the Polaroid or Kodak or whichever commercial, and the songs "Turn Around" and "Sunrise, Sunset" and - there are thousands more. Avoid Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time," and this one, Eric Clapton's song about his son. Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" sneaked up on me one time. The music doesn't have to be sentimental. Springsteen can be dangerous. John and Yoko. Bjork. Dylan. I become overwhelmed when I hear Nirvana. I want to scream like Kurt Cobain. I want to scream at him. Music isn't all that does it. There are millions of treacherous moments. Driving along Highway 1, I will see a peeling wave. Or I will reach the fork where two roads meet near Rancho Nicasio, where we veered to the left in carpool. A shooting star on a still night at the crest of Olema Hill. With friends, I hear a good joke - one that Nic would appreciate. The kids do something funny or endearing. A story. A worn sweater. A movie. Feeling wind and looking up, riding my bike. A million moments.”
― David Sheff, Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction

“They laugh at me because I'm different; I laugh at them because they're all the same”
― Kurt Cobain

“His brother Blerg had a red ball with Kurt Cobain's face on it. Blerg kept looking back and forth between me and the ball like he was trying to imagine me without the choppy haircut.”
― Rick Riordan, The Hammer of Thor

“Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are. —KURT COBAIN”
― Scott Jurek, Eat and Run: My Unlikely Journey to Ultramarathon Greatness

“I’m such a nihilistic jerk half the time. I’m so fucking sarcastic at times and then at other times I’m still vulnerable and so sincere. That’s pretty much how every song comes out — it’s like a mixture of both of them, and that’s pretty much how people my age are. I’m just as pissed off about the things that made me pissed off a few years ago. I’m pissed off about everything in general so all these songs are pretty much about my battle with the things that piss me off.”
― kurt cobain, Come As You Are Sheet Music

“I'm not well read, but when I do read, I read well. I don't have the time to translate what I understand in the form of conversation. I had exhausted most conversation at age 9. I only feel with grunts, screams and tones and with hand gestures and my body. I'm deaf in spirit.”
― Kurt Cobain, Journals

“In the late 80s though, during the new Glam Rock, leather trousers came back with a vengeance. In a way they replaced Spandex, which had slipped slowly out of fashion due to bands like Saxon never being out of the stuff. These new leather trousers began to develop accessories such as tassels, sequins, and laces up the sides. This all looked quite nice for a while, but in the end they were just another easy target for Kurt Cobain and his subversive cardigans.”
― Seb Hunter, Hell Bent for Leather: Confessions of a Heavy Metal Addict

“Up ahead on the Coast Road there's a bunch of teenagers, guys and girls. You don't understand kids' clothes anymore, what it all means. Back in the day things were all tribal -- clear lines. Your haircut and clothes said what music you liked, how smart you were, whether or not you were real, if you were reaching for the Other Place or stuck in the gutter. Internet's taken all of that, mangled the codes. People are mongrels of whatever the fuck now. Kurt Cobain shot himself for being a sell-out and these kids wouldn't even grasp the concept. You hate these kids. Wish you were these kids. Envy their obliviousness, like the world had just come into being, and existed only for you and your friends, and all you had was time.”
― Colin Walsh, Kala

“In Newcastle, Kurt announced from the stage, “I am a homosexual, I am a drug user, and I fuck pot-bellied pigs,” another classic Cobainism, though only one of his three claims was true.”
― Charles R. Cross, Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain

“You can't fire me because I quit.”
― Kurt Cobain, Nirvana In Utero: Guitar TAB Songbook | Guitar Recorded Versions Sheet Music for Electric Guitar | Grunge Rock Album Transcriptions for Intermediate and Advanced Players | 12 Iconic Tracks Included