On the Periphery Quotes

“I achieved something I’d never achieved before in writing a lyric about myself which had no answer. It had a question about religion. I’ve got this thing with religions in general. I’m interested in people’s philosophies and why they cling to them. Do they need something to rely upon because they are not strong enough in their own life, or are they clinging to them because there’s a real value that I miss? At the time, I was becoming more obsessed about Christian religion, and Forbidden Colours was the first time I achieved that kind of writing, putting something into the lyrics that was just an expression of what I was going through, that had no ending. It was very honest, and that’s what made me decide to carry on writing. I couldn’t go back. I was just incapable of getting out so I just wrote directly about myself.”
― Christopher E. Young, On the Periphery: David Sylvian - A Biography: The Solo Years

“As the conductor Leopold Stokowski once famously said, “…a painter paints pictures on canvas, but musicians paint their pictures on silence.”
― Christopher Young, On the Periphery: David Sylvian - A Biography: The Solo Years

“Dawn stations, with a steel light, and waxen figures. / Dust, stone, and clanking sounds, hiss of weary steam. / Night stations, shaded light, fading pools of colour. / Shadows and the shuffling of a million feet /… The station clock with staggering hand and the callous face, / says twenty-five-to-nine”
― Christopher Young, On the Periphery: David Sylvian - A Biography: The Solo Years