Michael Stipe Quotes

When we first started, we were a band from Athens and that was so off the map.

And I don't expect anyone can bring about a revolution in the way that Bob Dylan did, and didn't, in the 1960's.

I wouldn't survive ten minutes on American Idol.

I think there were early critics who wanted us to change the world because the Sex Pistols failed.

Radiohead are so good they scare me.



New York can do that to you. You come here to change the world but you end up changing yourself.

I grew up in an era where the Banana Splits, the Archies and the Monkees  were the music that I listened to. The Beatles were the music that was playing in the background.

We made mistakes, but they were ours, and that kind of pride of ownership, whether it`s the really good stuff or the bad and embarrassing stuff, is a really good feeling.

Lately I`ve been listening to Q-tip almost non-stop. And Bjork, and Thom Yorke from Radiohead, Natalie Merchant, Grant-Lee Phillips and Courtney Love and Bono. A lot of those people are people that I know and have friendships with. And when they do something great it really challenges me to kind of one-up them.

If I'm tired of me, I'm sure the public is as well.

Sex Pistols Quotes

Malcolm McLaren: "The Pistols were like my work of art. They were my canvas."

Johnny Rotten: "If you give me the chance, I'll destroy America for you."

Sid Vicious: "I'm not vicious really. I consider myself to be kindhearted. I love my mum."

Steve Jones: "We're not into music. We're into chaos."


Johnny Rotten: "The only place I have ever felt truly comfortable is on stage. I still get the nerves and the doubts beforehand, but on stage I feel that's my home."

Glen Matlock: "There was a lot of stuff going down in England at the time. We didn't set out to be deliberately outrageous; we were just pretty forthright."

Sid Vicious: "I don't want to be a junkie for the rest of my life. I don't want to be a junkie at all."

Malcolm McLaren: "Try managing a junkie, especially if you've never been one yourself."

Paul Cook: "What was the most miraculous thing about it all was that at the end we actually got an encore. People wanted more."

Johnny Rotten: "I'm not here for your amusement. You're here for mine."

Sid Vicious: "In the end I was the only one with any anarchy left in me."

John Lydon Quotes

John Lydon AKA Johnny Rotten, lead singer of the Sex Pistols, was one of the Architects of punk music and fashion.

"Chaos was my philosophy. Oh yeah, have no rules. If people start to build fences around you, break out and do something else. You should never, ever be understood completely."

"Music can describe emotions far more accurately than words ever can. as soon as I realised that, I knew music was where I wanted to be."

"I lost Sid, my best and dearest friend, to heroin, and it's not nice. You've got to get away from drugs as escapism. There's nothing you need to run away from yourself as a human being. Quite the opposite. Learn to love thyself and all will be fine."


 "The day I run out of ideas is the day I stop making records."

"Gandhi is my life's inspiration: passive resistance. I don't want to live in the Thunderdome with Mad Max."

"I'm surprised we aren't in jail for treason."

"The only place I have ever felt truly comfortable is on stage. I still get the nerves and the doubts beforehand, but on stage I feel that's my home."

(On Joe Strummer) "I miss him, by the way. There was something really good about him. He had a good little innocent spark in there, a real soul."

(On occupy Wall Street) "They had no leaders, which was genius. But unfortunately it always ends up with some hippy playing the flute."

"I'm not here for your amusement. You're here for mine."