Creativity Quote by Robert Palmer

Palmer is talking about fame in the internet age before we had a neat phrase for it: misquotes as a parallel currency, traded because they feel true, not because they are. The sly move is how he frames it. He insists he’s “not particularly a victim,” then immediately describes the machinery that turns anyone with a public name into a ventriloquist’s dummy. That modest disclaimer reads less like innocence than like a seasoned performer refusing to sound wounded onstage. Coolness is part of the job.

His phrasing is tellingly bureaucratic: a quote gets “made,” a remark “invented,” it gets “printed,” ends up “on the ’net.” No villain, no grand conspiracy. Just a pipeline. That’s the subtext: misinformation doesn’t require malice; it thrives on frictionless repetition. “Becomes currency” lands especially well coming from a musician whose work is literally commodified, sampled, remixed, and redistributed. He’s pointing to the way a personality can be pirated the same way a song can.

Then there’s the punchline: “some of them are so bizarre!” It’s half-laugh, half-alarm. Bizarre isn’t just “wrong,” it’s misaligned with the person you are, the voice you’ve carefully built. For a pop artist, voice is identity, and identity is livelihood. Palmer isn’t merely complaining about accuracy; he’s diagnosing a cultural moment where the public prefers a punchy line to an actual human being, and the internet is the mint.