John Joseph Lydon Quotes
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Punk is like looking at a mirror. I already have a mirror so I don't need the Offspring to remind me how gorgeous I am.
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I don't believe in anarchy, because it will ultimately amount to the power of the bully, with weapons. Gandhi is my life's inspiration: passive resistance. I don't want to live in the Thunderdome with Mad Max.
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My way of thinking as I approach any human being on this planet is, 'What are you doing now?' That's what interests me. I don't come at anybody with a whole bunch of assumptions.
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Punk was never about one particular clean-cut imagery... it's about many, many individuals coming very loosely together.
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My entire life, socially, was all around the Maggie era. That was the great challenge as a Sex Pistol was how to deal with Margaret Thatcher. I think we did rather good.
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You know, I've been to some superstars' houses, and I've been really disgusted when I see their platinum discs hanging in the toilet. They're just there on the walls glaring at you when you're trying to be occupied with other things.
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I've been in very many situations where I've not liked the other members of the band or they have not liked me. I grew up presuming that's the way music was made. It doesn't need to be that way. It's taken me years years to find that out.
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When you grew up like me and my four brothers, you end up feeling somewhat inadequate, like somehow you don't count. I was very ill as a child and in and out of hospital. That sort of alienates you, and in my songs I put that to good use.
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I don't have any expensive habits. I'm not a car collector or any of that nonsense. But I'd love to be incredibly wealthy for no reason at all.
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You don't write 'God Save The Queen' because you hate the English race, you write a song like that because you love them; and you're fed up with them being mistreated.
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How can you ban language, words? How're words offensive? And why should I have to tolerate YOUR interpretation? I'm the one using the word. ASK me how I'm using it, don't TELL me. And if you don't like the way I'm using it, so what? It's my right. It's my freedom of expression. Without that, we're nothing but slaves. My language, now fuck off!!!
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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.
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Turn the other cheek too often and you get a razor through it.
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I applaud the effort it takes to put a record together.
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I'm not here for your amusement. You're here for mine.
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As a human being, I'm work in process.
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I like America's diversity and its landscapes.
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I've never done anything deliberately; I just speak my mind, and that is what I consistently do and will always do in any way shape or form that I can.
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We need wealthy dogs off the seats of power. They're taking us back to feudalism and I really don't want that. But I'm very far from being a socialist.
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I always knew the Sixties wasn't a revolution. It really was just a bunch of university students with wealthy parents having fun.
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I like crazy people, especially those who don't see the risk.
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The record companies fell apart - quite deservedly. Their corrupting, all-binding contract nonsense had to stop.
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Periods of inactivity, I don't know such things. I'm consistently writing. My life is busy. It always is. There are hardly any moments for self-indulgent laziness.
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Dummy Dum Dum was my nickname for years at school. I was the strange one of the family, the one who couldn't remember his name.