“It's better to burn out than to fade away.”
Neil Young (1945) Canadian singer-songwriter
Misattributed
“It's better to burn out than to fade away.”
Quoted by Cobain in his suicide note, this is from the song My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue) by Neil Young, from his album Rust Never Sleeps (1979)
Misattributed
Variant: It's better to burn out than fade away.
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Kurt Cobain158
American musician and artist 1967–1994Related quotes
“It's better to fade away like an old soldier than to burn out.”
John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter
Playboy interview (1980)
Context: It's better to fade away like an old soldier than to burn out. I don't appreciate worship of dead Sid Vicious or of dead James Dean or of dead John Wayne. It's the same thing. Making Sid Vicious a hero, Jim Morrison — it's garbage to me. I worship the people who survive. Gloria Swanson, Greta Garbo.
Neil Young (1945) Canadian singer-songwriter
Hey Hey, My My, written with Jeff Blackburn; quoted by Kurt Cobain in his suicide note.
Song lyrics, Rust Never Sleeps (1978)
“Better do a good deed near at home than go far away to burn incense.”
Amelia Earhart (1897–1937) American aviation pioneer and author
Chinese proverb, as quoted in The Homiletic Review, Vol. 90 (1925), p. 363
Misattributed
Boris Yeltsin (1931–2007) 1st President of Russia and Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR
Statement to a TImes reporter in 1990, as quoted in "The wit and wisdom of Boris" in Guardian Unlimited (23 April 2007)
1990s
George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter
By Still Waters (1906)
Neil Young (1945) Canadian singer-songwriter
Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)
Song lyrics, Rust Never Sleeps (1978)
Jean-Dominique Bauby book The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Source: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
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Pig
Before These Crowded Streets (1998)