The songs were all either fast or sad. Because all songs should be either fast or sad.

— Rob Sheffield

The times you lived through, the people you shared those times with — nothing brings it all to life like an old mixtape. It does a better job of storing up memories than actual brain tissue can do. Every mixtape tells a story. Put them together, and they can add up to the story of a life.

— Rob Sheffield

The way I pictured it, all this grief would be like a winter night when you're standing outside. You'll warm up once you get used to the cold. Except after you've been out there for a while, you feel the warmth draining out of you, and you realize the opposite is happening; you're getting colder and colder, as the body heat you brought outside with you seeps out of your skin. Instead of getting used to it, you get weaker the longer you endure it.

— Rob Sheffield

We couldn't believe how exciting it was to be together, a pair of young Americanizers on a roll. We'd lived for just twenty-five years; we weren't planning to die for fifty more. Furthermore, we danced and drank and went to rock shows. Our lives were just beginning, our favorite moment was right now, our favorite songs were unwritten.

— Rob Sheffield

We want to freeze the perfect moment, hold on to it, at least long enough to understand it. But it dances on with us or without us, so we jump in and try to keep up. The universe is expanding, and we are just two of a billion stars.

— Rob Sheffield

When I started out as a music journalist, at the end of the 1980s, it was generally assumed that we were living through the lamest music era the world would ever see. But those were also the years when hip-hop exploded, beatbox disco soared, indie rock took off, and new wave invented a language of teen angst.

— Rob Sheffield

When I was a junior, my school introduced badminton, which was clearly a P.E. department ploy to get me away from the wrestling room, and it worked, since the first time I played badminton was like the first time I tasted sushi or heard the Beatles or read Wordsworth. This was a sport? This counted for gym requirements?

— Rob Sheffield

When we die, we will turn into songs, and we will hear each other and remember each other.

— Rob Sheffield

When you stick a song on a tape, you set it free.

— Rob Sheffield

You can't beat the beehive for glam Puckett attitude.

— Rob Sheffield