Love is a Mix Tape

Love is a Mix Tape (2007) is a memoir by music journalist Rob Sheffield.

Quotes

• I know people for whom music is just background noise. They don’t listen to it. They just consume it. These people have never made a mix-tape for anyone. These people are not my friends. These people have no soul.

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

• It’s the same with people who say, ‘Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’ Even people who say this must realize that the exact opposite is true. What doesn’t kill you maims you, cripples you, leaves you weak, makes you whiny and full of yourself at the same time. The more pain, the more pompous you get. Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you incredibly annoying.

• There are all kinds of mix tapes. there is always a reason to make one.

• I'd shut the whole world down just to tell you.

• It's always that one song that gets to you. You can hide, but the song comes to find you.

• Our lives were just beginning, our favorite moment was right now, our favorite songs were unwritten.

• I had no voice to talk with because she was my whole language.

• Unlike me, Renee was not shy; she was a real people-pleaser. She worried way too much what people thought of her, wore her heart on her sleeve, expected too much from people, and got hurt too easily. She kept other people's secrets like a champ, but told her own too fast. She expected the world not to cheat her and was always surprised when it did."

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

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

• But the answer is simple. Love is a mix tape.

• Tonight, I feel like my whole body is made out of memories. I'm a mix-tape, a cassette that's been rewound so many times you can hear the fingerprints smudged on the tape.