Rock icon David Bowie dead at 69

David Bowie has died following a battle with cancer, just days after celebrating his 69th birthday and releasing his final album, Blackstar.
David Bowie was the most articulate of rock stars and always gave great interview. Here's a round up of quotes from an artist who provided better running commentary on his life and work than all his critics combined. 

On his stage persona 

"My performances have got to be theatrical experiences for me as well as for the audience. I don't want to climb out of my fantasies in order to go up onstage — I want to take them on stage with me."
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3rd July 1973: David Bowie in concert at the Hammersmith Odeon, on 3rd July 1973, the last concert performed in the guise of  Ziggy Stardust. (Photo by Steve Wood/Express/Getty Images) Photo: Getty Images

On style

"I'm just a cosmic yob, I suppose. I've always worn my own style of clothes."
Melody Maker, 1972

On robotics

"I should like to replace all parts of my body with plastic equivalents. Then I couldn't grow old."
Music Scene, 1973

On death

"I've now decided that my death should be very precious. I really want to use it. I'd like my death to be as interesting as my life has been and will be."
Playboy, 1976

On sexuality 

"It's true - I am a bisexual. But I can't deny that I've used that fact very well. I suppose it's the best thing that ever happened to me. Fun, too."
Playboy, 1976
British pop singer David Bowie in concert at Earl's Court, London during his 1978 world tour.   (Photo by Evening Standard/Getty Images)
British pop singer David Bowie in concert at Earl's Court, London during his 1978 world tour. (Photo by Evening Standard/Getty Images)

On talent

"The worst joke God can play on you is to make you an artist, but only a mediocre artist."
NME, 1980

On performing a role 

"As an adolescent, I was painfully shy, withdrawn. I didn't really have the nerve to sing my songs onstage and nobody else was doing them. I decided to do them in disguise so that I didn't have to actually go through the humiliation of going onstage and being myself."
Musician, 1983 

On addiction

"My problem was cocaine, and then I went from cocaine to alcohol, which is a natural course of events. You have to be lucky enough to have friends around you who want you to succeed, but you also have to want to stop yourself. You have to know in your own mind that you don't want to go on like that. That's the biggest hurdle. And if you can overcome that, then you're OK."
i-D, 1987

On fame

"I think fame itself is not a rewarding thing. The most you can say is that it gets you a seat in restaurants."
Q, 1990

On Lennon

'I loved John. I remember asking him once what he thought of glam rock and he said: "It's just fooking rock and roll with lipstick."'
Telegraph, 1997

On the future 

"I don't know where I'm going from here, but I promise it won't be boring."
On stage at Madison Square Gardens, 1997
FILE - In this Jan. 9, 1997, file photo, David Bowie performs during a concert celebrating his 50th birthday, at Madison Square Garden in New York. Bowie, the innovative and iconic singer whose illustrious career lasted five decades, died Monday, Jan. 11, 2016, after battling cancer for 18 months. He was 69. (AP Photo/Ron Frehm, File)
 Photo: AP

On death and cigarettes 

"I can't think of a time that I didn't think about death. There again, I've been smoking all my life so it's hard to not equate the two together."
to Jarvis Cocker, The Big Issue, 1997

On advice 

"Any list of advice I have to offer to a musician always ends with 'If it itches, go and see a doctor'."
on receiving an honorary doctorate from Berklee College of Music, Boston, 1999

On his songs 

"I feel that I've consistently written about the same subjects for 35… nearly 40 years. There's really been no room for change with me. It's all despondency, despair, fear, isolation, abandonment."
BBC, 2002

On refusing a knighthood

"I would never have any intention of accepting anything like that. I seriously don't know what it's for. It's not what I spent my life working for."
The Sun, 2003
David Bowie performs at the Sydney Entertainment Centre in 2003.
David Bowie performs at the Sydney Entertainment Centre in 2003. Photo: Domino Postiglione

On drugs and creativity 

"So many people find it fashionable to say you couldn't write those things if you weren't on drugs and all that. I just doubt that's the truth at all, because some of the best things I wrote in [the 1970s were when] I had already cleaned up."
730 Report, 2004

On the afterlife 

"Questioning my spiritual life has always been germane to what I was writing. Always. It's because I'm not quite an atheist and it worries me."
Beliefnet, 2005

David Bowie, who has died of cancer aged 69.