This is the Quotes page.  It contains quotes about Cliff Burton from James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Kirk Hammett, Jason Newsted, and original lead guitarist Dave Mustaine (now guitarist/vocalist of Megadeth).  It even has quotes from Cliff Burton himself.
 
 
 

On Cliff:  Cliff Burton Remembered
(most of the quotes taken from Movie Screen Yearbook No. 43 The Complete History of Metallica and Up & Coming Contenders)

“I remember this guy lit my couch on fire a couple of times.”--James

“Cliff was so completely honest to himself and the people around him.  He hated all this being-put-on-a-pedestal bullshit.”--Lars, 1986

“I could just see them go, ‘oh my God! Look at that guy!’  The thing that struck them most was that while you see lead guitar-playing, here you had a guy playing lead bass!  They thought that was great.”--Metallica drum tech, Marrs, on the first time James and Lars saw Cliff play

“To this day, I think about him every day.”--Kirk, 1988

“We heard this wild solo going on and thought, ‘I don’t see any guitar player up there.’  It turned out it was the bass player, Cliff, with a wah wah pedal and this mop of hair.  He didn’t care whether people were there.  He was looking down at his bass playing.”--James

“We always miss Cliff, but he is kind of on the record (…And Justice For All). The song “To Live Is To Die” is really based on a number of riffs that Cliff wrote a couple of years ago.  It’s kind of cool to have something written by Cliff on the new album.”--Lars

“He was a great and very special talent… Cliff’s solos were absolutely brilliant.”--Jason, 1988

“Knowing Cliff’s attitude, he’d kick our butts if we quit.”--James (on continuing after Cliff’s death)

“I know Cliff, more than anyone else in the band, would have been the first guy to give us a kick in the ass, and wouldn’t want us to sit around.  It’s what he would have wanted us to do.”--Lars

“I saw the bus lying right on him.  I saw his legs sticking out.  I freaked.  The bus driver, I recall, was trying to yank the blanket out from under him to use for other people.  I just went, ‘Don’t fucking do that!’ I already wanted to kill the guy.  I don’t know if he was drunk or if he hit some ice.  All I knew was, he was driving and Cliff wasn’t alive anymore.”--James, 1993

“He was always against looking too posey, he was always into just looking natural.”--Kirk

“He was a wild, hippie-ish, acid-taking, bell-bottom-wearing guy.  He meant business, and you couldn’t fuck around with him.  I wanted to get that respect that he had.  We gave him shit about his bell-bottoms everyday.  He didn’t care.  “This is what I wear. Fuck you.”  He loved music.  He was really intellectual but very to the point.  He taught me a lot about attitude.”--James, 1993

“…we came up here and played with Cliff, who just blew the doors off of anyone we’ve ever played with.  He’s the new Steve Harris of metal.”--Dave Mustaine

“I had seen Cliff in this band called Easy Street when I was like 16 years old at a club called International Cafe in San Francisco…  It always stuck in my mind.  This guy with wild, wild red hair flying all over the place and a Rickenbacker and a real distinct bass style and I thought to myself, ‘This guy is fuckin’ wild!’”--Kirk

“There was a huge shadow there.  I’d always looked up to him so much.”--Jason (upon replacing Cliff)

“I wasn’t too angry in the beginning.  I was obviously grieving, but the anger started setting in when I realized that it’s not new that people in rock-n-roll die, but usually it’s self-inflicted in terms of excessive drink or drug abuse.  He had nothing to do with it.  It’s so useless.  Completely useless.”--Lars, January 1987

“The only person who was able to figure out a time and write it on a piece of paper was Cliff.  He had an immense knowledge of timing, musical harmonies and music theory in general.”--Kirk, 1987

“People probably thought, ‘Oh, they're not going to do the heavy lyrics now because of what happened.’  Man, those lyrics mean a lot more to me now.”--James

“If we had hung it up, Cliff would've been so pissed off.”--Kirk

“Cliff’s taken classes in school on music theory, things like mixing harmonies together.  I think he took a junior college course.”--James, 1986

“In Denmark while recording Master Of Puppets, we hung out a lot.  We’d go out and play poker for 8 hours straight after being up for 24 hours.  We’d find a seafood restaurant that was open, eat raw oysters and drink beer, scream at the natives while we were drunk… that’s some of my best memories of him.”--Kirk
 

Here are some notable things that Cliff Burton himself once said.
 

“To live is to die.”

“Control your life through insanity.”

“We do what we wanna do--if they consider that selling out… Whatever.”

“You don’t burn out from going too fast.  You burn out from going too slow and getting bored.”