Welcome to the world of basement quotes, where the often overlooked space beneath our homes becomes a canvas for creativity, reflection, and sometimes, a touch of humor. Basements are more than just subterranean storage areas; they can serve as cozy retreats, bustling entertainment hubs, or even eerie settings for spine-chilling tales. Throughout history, basements have held a certain mystique, harboring secrets, memories, and hidden treasures waiting to be unearthed.
Whether you’re a homeowner pondering the potential of your basement or simply someone intrigued by the allure of these underground realms, you’ll find inspiration aplenty in the quotes gathered here. From witty quips about the quirks of basement living to profound reflections on the depths of the human experience, these quotes encapsulate the essence of what it means to dwell below ground level. So, without further ado, delve into the depths of basement wisdom and let these quotes spark your imagination and perhaps even prompt a newfound appreciation for the space beneath our feet.
Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Lower the bar. Actually spending ten minutes clearing off one shelf is better than fantasizing about spending a weekend cleaning out the basement. Gretchen Rubin
My first job was washing dishes in the basement of a nursing home for $2.10 an hour, and I learned as much about the value of hard work there as I ever did later. Douglas Preston
It’s fun, but the fun is where it always was. I mean, it’s still fun to strap on my Les Paul in the basement and turn up the Marshall amp. I’m still 15. I still enjoy that as much as I ever did. Paul Westerberg
From an early age, I knew I would become a scientist. It may have been my brother Sam’s doing. He interested me in the laws of falling bodies when I was ten and helped my father equip a basement chemistry lab for me when I was fifteen. I became skilled in the synthesis of selenium halides. Sheldon Lee Glashow
There are times when we look back and think, ‘Do you remember when we had to lug a piano downstairs to a basement of some venue to play for five people?’ We do a lot of reminiscing. It helps us keep our heads on straight. Tyler Joseph
You know, the loudest stadium I’ve ever played in was 45,000 people at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock, Arkansas. The entire thing is concrete. It’s like dropping a ball bearing in your neighbor’s basement. Mike Leach
When I interviewed profilers in 1984 in the basement of the FBI Academy at Quantico, VA., there were just four of them – Roger Depue, John Douglas, Roy Hazelwood, and Robert Ressler. Ronald Kessler
In effect, you cannot stop Iraq from growing nasty bugs in the basement. You can stop them from putting operational warheads on working missiles and launching them at their neighbors. Barton Gellman
I liked to work in a shop down in the basement and invent things and build gadgets. Francis Ford Coppola
Some men can live up to their loftiest ideals without ever going higher than a basement. Theodore Roosevelt
Due to my work as a musician, songwriter, recording artist and author, hundreds of people stream in and out of my basement studio to help me with my creative projects. Dan Hill
My mother gets all mad at me if I stay in a hotel. I’m 31-years-old, and I don’t want to sleep on a sleeping bag down in the basement. It’s humiliating. Ben Affleck
Oddly, when I started to make the record, I wasn’t aware I was making a record. I just was sort of disgusted with the whole thing and sequestered myself in the basement and started playing the piano just for something to do. Paul Westerberg
It was just me in my basement honing my skills, hearing songs on the radio and trying to manipulate them and then writing over those, and I started with local artists in Boston, writing records for them. Clinton Sparks
We had a lion that was living in somebody’s basement outside of Branson, Missouri. Tippi Hedren
When I graduated high school, nearly a half-million people subscribed to ‘Popular Electronics’ magazine. Soldering up some radio or hi-fi amplifier on the basement workbench was not just a personal passion – a lot of young people were doing the same. The magazine expired in 1999 for lack of interest. Seth Shostak
White Zombie was a bunch of kids with the worst equipment playing in a basement. But that is what is so great about it. There is no reason to think that you can’t do it. Rob Zombie
Ireland starts for me with the end of ‘The Dead,’ which my father read to me from his desk in his basement office in New Albany, Ind. John Jeremiah Sullivan
A journalistic purpose could be someone with a Xerox machine in a basement. Antonin Scalia
My high-school a cappella teacher would embarrass me in front of the choir. ‘Mavis, you’re in the basement. Mavis, you’re singing with the boys.’ I said, ‘Mr. Finch, my voice isn’t soprano. I can’t sing up there with the girls.’ So I just got out of the choir. Mavis Staples
I still have a 15? sticker on the frame of my law degree. It’s tainted, so I just leave it in the basement. Clarence Thomas
When I started walking and I looked down and I saw on the floor this water, which looked like, you know, water in your basement except it happened to be in the auxiliary building of a nuclear power plant. William Scranton
I like the Hotel Costes, on rue Saint Honore, a boutique hotel near the Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre and the Tuileries. I love the dark, moody decor as well as the fantastic scented, candlelit pool in the basement. Alice Temperley
Most fears are basic: fear of the dark, fear of going down in the basement, fear of weird sounds, fear that somebody is waiting for you in your closet. Those kinds of things stay with you no matter what age. R. L. Stine
I have a lot of hobbies and I can be very remiss in reminding myself to go down to the basement to work. Geddy Lee
If I wanted to have total control and be a dictator, I would do ice sculpture in my basement. If I want to make a movie, I’m going to work with 500 people, and I will have to work with their strength and their weakness. Denis Villeneuve
For years I wrote in my basement. More recently I graduated to one floor above, an office with all my books and music and – ta da! – a window. Mitch Albom
Not long before my mother died, I found a long-lost portrait of Jane Franklin’s granddaughter, Jane Flagg, aged nine – oil on canvas – in the basement of a public library not a dozen miles from my mother’s house. Jill Lepore
My brothers and I always did improv stuff in our basement with our friends; we’re super nerds, and that was our way of spending a Friday night. Tatiana Maslany
In one week, I went from being a girl who owed a guy thousands of dollars – my manager Anthony was paying for my outfits, paying for my food; I was sleeping in his parents’ basement – to taking meetings with every major label in America. The next morning, I had a record deal and wrote him a cheque to pay back all that money. Halsey
Ever since I was 7 years old, I was writing. I remember being in the basement of my house, this dank, horrible basement, putting on plays with not-very-willing participants, and I would promise kids in the neighborhood that I’d play Nintendo 64 with them after we’d rehearse this stupid play that I wrote. John Francis Daley
When I go to my health club, and it’s in the basement, you have to take the elevator down. And this drives me crazy. Why can’t there be a stairway? At least make it as easy to exercise as it is to not exercise. It’s in society’s interest for me to take the stairs. Malcolm Gladwell
It’s hard to keep the romance going sometimes. Because you have a job. And you have children. And you have a house and a dog. And something leaks in the basement, and somebody has to take the dog to the vet… you’re exhausted. Julianne Moore
Last year, I made a refrigerator in my basement. And I needed to because I needed to figure how – you know there is no such thing as ‘cold.’ There is only less heat. Alton Brown
When you’re sitting in the basement trying to get on, you have no choice – you’ve gotta figure out how to make a song: ‘I’ve gotta bang on these buttons until it sounds good.’ Russ
I worked flipping cheeseburgers and Big Mac’s at McDonald’s, purchased a microphone, and cleared all the stuff out of my basement and started making music. Yung Lean
Studios are passe for me. I’d rather play in a garage, in a truck, or a rehearsal hall, a club, or a basement. Neil Young
Most people treat the news media like the exercise bike they have in their basement. They’re glad it’s there but they never use it. Drew Curtis
I’m one of those artists that doesn’t actually hate my old hits. I love Boston music. I really like ‘More than a Feeling.’ After playing it to myself in a basement for such a long time, I’m happy to do it out on stage. Tom Scholz
You can put me in the basement or the penthouse; it doesn’t matter to me. Davy Jones
I decided to build a studio in my house. We built it in my basement kitchen. I had the drummer up by the fish tank. I was in the toilet singing. The bass player was out by the shelves in the living room, and the guitarist was on the couch by the telly. Eddi Reader
I’ve got four brothers, so with them and all our friends we had these sports parties in the basement. We’d play basketball, mini-sticks, baseball in the backyard, football, whatever it was. We were busy 24/7. Rob Gronkowski
My father taught me photography. It was his hobby, and we had a small darkroom in the fruit cellar of our basement. It was the kind of makeshift darkroom that was only dark at night. Sam Abell
Now that our kids are getting older, they need their space. We dug out the basement so they will have a place to go crazy in the wintertime. My son is already talking about how he’s going to make a skateboard ramp. It’s just a mosh pit down there, so they can do whatever they want. We’re not even going to finish it. Candice Olson
I don’t decide where I live. My wife decides. She’s a curator of contemporary art, and she works at an art museum, so we go wherever she has a job. All basements look the same, so I can write from whatever basement I happen to be living in. John Green
Writers collect stories of rituals: John Cheever putting on a jacket and tie to go down to the basement, where he kept a desk near the boiler room. Keats buttoning up his clean white shirt to write in, after work. Mona Simpson
When we started out, you could design a chip with a few guys in a basement. Henry Samueli
One of the things I love about working with my brother is that there’s a commitment there – an unwavering commitment. From our basement in Illinois when I was three years old to Iceland on a frozen glacier with Matthew McConaughey and Matt Damon in spacesuits – there’s a commitment to the pure spectacle, the pure cinema of it. Jonathan Nolan
Pay attention to your friends; pay attention to that cousin that jumps up on the picnic table at the family reunion and goes a little too ‘nutty,’ you know what I mean? Pay attention to that aunt that’s down in the basement that never comes upstairs. We have to pay attention to our friends, pay attention to your family, and offer a hand. Jenifer Lewis
I had tuberculosis in my mid-20s. I didn’t have much work, was living in a damp London basement in a sleeping bag, and ate only every other day. I looked rough and felt very run down. Engelbert Humperdinck
I got addicted to Tetris, playing it in my basement, I was missing all these airplane flights over it. After the fourth one that I missed, I realized I needed to get rid of this thing – so ever since then, I don’t play video games any more. Bam Margera
I just played at a club in L.A. called the Baked Potato. It fits like 90 people. It’s like playing somewhere in a basement in, like, Indiana or somewhere where all your friends show up. It’s really fun and there’s a very different energy to that than to play to 50,000 at a Tokyo baseball stadium. Chad Smith
I always remind myself that the world is bigger than Hollywood, because I need to. Being Canadian and from Winnipeg, I have the spirit of a dreamer because of the cold, and being in the basement thinking of possibilities of where else I can be in the world, in a good way! Sarah Carter
Woe to us if we get our satisfaction from the food in the kitchen and the TV in the den and the sex in the bedroom with an occasional tribute to the cement blocks in the basement! John Piper
Race, class, childhood experience, the books I found on my mother’s bookshelf, the albums I found in my father’s basement – these things are all part of who I am and will always be a part of my work. Rashid Johnson
But my husband came from a small town and hardworking parents like I did, and I don’t think we’ve lost that mind-set. We don’t have a bowling alley in our basement. We don’t have houses on the beach and one in New York and one in L.A. Carrie Underwood
In the 19th century, if you had a basement lab, you could make major scientific discoveries in your own home. Right? Because there was all this science just lying around waiting for somebody to pick it up. Seth Shostak
It doesn’t sound that cool to say it, but I still get nervous for any show. But it’s different degrees – playing a small basement of a club versus playing a festival like Firefly or Bonnaroo. The feeling is, ‘Crap, I’m about to be blasted in the face,’ and once you get started, then it’s like, ‘OK, I’ve done this before. I know what I’m doing.’ Josh Dun
I started recording in my sophomore year in high school. I recorded things on my cell phone in my basement. Juice Wrld
I used to devour a lot of stand-up comedy in my cousin’s basement. He had cable and I didn’t, so I went there and saw all the comedians. Sebastian Maniscalco
‘Dungeons and Dragons’ has evolved over the years, and so has the community that played the game. It had a lot of lingering stigma from the anti-‘D&D’ movement of the ’70s and ’80s – this kind of idea that ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ is only played by the lowest of the low basement dwellers – that has kept people from being comfortable talking about it. Matthew Mercer
A lot of people, even if they know what VR is, see it as this tool to go in your basement and play Halo. Palmer Luckey
In September 1968, Rush played for around 20 people at a small hall in a church basement. We played songs like ‘Spoonful,’ ‘Fire’ and ‘Born Under a Bad Sign,’ and got paid $10. Then we went to a nearby deli and ordered Cokes and French fries and started planning our future. Alex Lifeson
I always thought what made ‘Beetlejuice’ look so great was because it looked like some genius kid made it in his basement. Michael Keaton
Explorations into chemistry were done in our basement, sometimes with friends, and my parents must have had quite a bit of confidence in my abilities when they allowed me to experiment with explosive mixtures. Wolfgang Ketterle
If your basement isn’t insulated properly, your furnace has to warm up cold air to pump through the house – it’ll have to work harder and won’t be as efficient. Bryan Baeumler
I was a huge comic book fan as a kid. The only problem I had with comic books is how expensive they got. I didn’t have a lot of money, so I had to be very specific about what I wanted to collect. I think they’re all somewhere in the basement of my folks’ house. Nathan Fillion
For every veteran who goes through a divorce, a wife goes through one, too. For every veteran alone in the basement, there is a wife upstairs, bewildered, isolated and in despair from the dark clouds of war that hangs over family life. Karl Marlantes
Practical storage pieces are great if you have a basement or a garage. But when you actually live with them day in and day out, they should be beautiful to look at. Thom Filicia
My most vivid memory of my father centers on the day he left. It was warm, and my mother was especially short with Rhonda and me that afternoon, which I attributed to the heat. I was oblivious to the mounting hostilities in our basement apartment. Deval Patrick
Whenever I approach a record, I don’t really have a science to it. I approach every record differently. First record was in a home studio. Second record was a live record. Third record was made while I was on tour. Fourth record was made over the course of, like, two years in David Kahn’s basement. Matisyahu
It always surprises me and always makes me proud when I see people that I know I worked with at the house in the basement on TV being superstars. Zaytoven
I was a girl from Massapequa, New York. I grew up in Massapequa. I lived in a basement with one window. Jessica Hahn
My mom’s whole side of the family, they’re all Packers fans. My mom’s a Bears fan. My stepdad is a Vikings guy. So that gets ugly. My mom sits upstairs watching the Bears game; he sits in the basement. They can’t watch it together. Football’s a violent anger in our family dynamic. Ashton Kutcher
I would advise young aspiring theater artists to do as many shows as possible. It doesn’t matter if it’s in the basement of a church, in school, or in community theater. Do them wherever you can; big parts or small, it doesn’t matter. Rob McClure
I don’t think there’s anything that will make me stop doing it. There may be a time when it’s not available to anyone. You may have to come listen at my basement window… but I can’t stop. Paul Westerberg
I never trained in pro wrestling with The Sheik, but I did amateur wrestling with pro wrestlers in my dad’s basement. Bret Hart
There’d be days when I wouldn’t eat at all because I’d be in the basement working all day. J Dilla
My parents were brutal to each other, so I slept in the basement by an old coal-fired furnace. I became a street kid. Occasionally, I’d live with aunts or uncles, then I’d run away to live in the woods, trapping and hunting game to survive. The wilderness pulled at me; still does. Gary Paulsen
I love to run. When the weather’s bad, I should get on the treadmill in the basement gym of my apartment building, but I lack the motivation. Tom Riley
My husband is a musician. He cooks and he’s a chef but he also, he makes basement recordings. So many people in my life make basement recordings, so I feel very lucky, I’m surrounded by very creative people. Dana Spiotta
Don’t believe bands who say it’s all about the fans and they want to give their music away for free. The result is they will continue to live in their mother’s basement. Gene Simmons
Performing live in front of an audience is such a matter of will – all of those things you can do just fine in your basement, suddenly you have to do them in front of hundreds or thousands of people, and it becomes a different matter entirely. Neil Peart
It took me years to get out of the bargain basement. I always wanted to walk into a men’s store and buy a cashmere sweater. Jamie Farr
High school and college were my punk, formative years. I was playing hardcore, learning to be a musician. In bands, you tour, but you’re paid nothing; you’re playing to 50 people in a basement, sleeping in a van, and you love it. Steve Aoki
I was writing full time after quitting a job as a high school English teacher, and I hadn’t been able to sell anything, and my bank account was down to zero, and all of my friends were like ‘What are you doing in the basement, when are you going to get a real job?’, and my parents thought I’d completely lost it. Matthew Quick
As we have seen, WikiLeaks is a robust organization. During my time in solitary confinement in the basement of a Victorian prison, we continue to release, our media partners continued to write stories. The important revelations from this material continue to come out. We have approximately 2,000 cables into 250,000. Julian Assange
I don’t like going into the basement. I’m always afraid that something’s going to blow up. Roz Chast
I don’t even know what made me start wanting to do music. It just… happened. Because I sat in my basement all the time, and music was my best friend, and I just wanted to be a part of it. Clinton Sparks
When I did it, I was a starving musician in London in a basement flat, but a simple tune with the right singer or the right situation can become very well liked and accepted. I’m only too pleased to say it happened with that one. Mick Ralphs
Weapons of mass destruction aren’t pulled out of a black hat like a white rabbit at a magic show. They’re produced in factories. There’s science and technology involved. They’re not produced in a hole in the ground or in a basement. Scott Ritter
Technology has eliminated the basement darkroom and the whole notion of photography as an intense labor of love for obsessives and replaced them with a sense of immediacy and instant gratification. Joe McNally
The ‘International Style of Modernism’ came with the advent of building services. In the end, the architecture became like a container space, essentially like a boring box with a basement full of machinery to make it inhabitable. As a result, buildings literally started to look identical all over the planet. Bjarke Ingels
I got the whole band set up in the basement and we are jamming. Sebastian Bach
If people are given the chance to experience life in more than one country, they will hate a little less. It’s not a miracle potion, but little by little you can solve problems in the basement of a country, not on the surface. Marjane Satrapi
I’ve been in the bargain basement of the movie business. Linda Fiorentino
I know that collector types can be a pain in the neck and seem perpetually frozen in time – or at least in their parents’ basement – but someone has to look out for the past, lest it slip away forever. Henry Rollins
If you put a person in a training gym made out of entire gold, it doesn’t guarantee that this person will become a champion. But if you put a person in the basement, then there is a high chance that he will get out of this basement as a champion. Oleksandr Usyk
Only those who attempt the absurd will achieve the impossible. I think it’s in my basement… let me go upstairs and check. M. C. Escher
After I left the Pumpkins, I went home and just sat around. I have a studio in my basement, and I found myself writing all these songs, just taking advantage of the relaxed situation. I wrote about 30 songs in about 30 days. Jimmy Chamberlin
