Top 100 Lydon Quotes
#1. It takes a long time to find your own voice. Along the way, you imitate all the things that influence you - in my case Johnny Cash, Bowie, John Lydon.
Dave Gahan
#2. You can go down the list of great artists and kind of understand that they are products of their environment. Whether it's U2 or Henry Rollins or myself or Johnny Lydon, they're gonna be products of their environment.
Eddie Vedder
#3. I wasn't planning on being a guitar player; I was going to be a singer. And I was for a little bit in the Sex Pistols - that is, until we got John Lydon. And then I realized I wasn't really suited as a front guy.
Steve Jones
#4. Lydon Johnson realized he really was President, that his identity had changed by President Kennedy's shocking death, when aides who had been like family to him minutes before, stood in his presence on Air Force One.
Nancy Gibbs
#5. I've turned arrogance into an artform, where it's so absurd that it becomes comedy. But I've never done anything to hurt anybody or steal from anyone.
John Lydon
#6. ..love is as complex an emotion as exists. There are many reasons why love does not prosper.
.. the waters are perilous, and you would do well to know that, because unlike your novels, not every story has a happy ending.
Mary Lydon Simonsen
#7. Some song ideas absolutely require a kind of rigid discipline, and others require absolute chaotic abandon. The form is only valid if you know how to un-form it. I don't mean to sound like an intellectual here!
John Lydon
#8. If you ever want to know why I'm not on a record label, look at 'The X Factor!' Honestly, of all the people that strive to break barriers in music and do good things and write great lyrics, not one of them would ever pass the first round on any of these competitions.
John Lydon
#9. Love is 2 minutes and 52 seconds of squelching noises.
John Lydon
#10. If my leg falls off, I'll get a prosthetic. There'd be no deep sadness about. I'd just get on with it! It's called life, and I love life. You have to be positive, and you have to crack on no matter what.
John Lydon
#11. 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.
John Lydon
#12. A record company used to be a very good thing, but they ended up soul-destroyingly trapping people in the accounting department. And you couldn't get any further, and the heads of each department were changing all the time, so you couldn't have any permanent relationship within the corporation.
John Lydon
#13. When I write, my brain moves faster than my hands so I'm always trying to picture things.
John Lydon
#14. Love is two minutes and fifty-two seconds of squishy sounds.
John Lydon
#16. The only good political movement I've seen lately was Occupy Wall Street. They had no leaders, which was genius. But unfortunately it always ends up with some hippy playing a flute.
John Lydon
#18. I mean, the genuine roots of culture is folk music.
John Lydon
#19. I'm very open about my politics. I don't believe in any political party at all, none of them.
John Lydon
#20. 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.
John Lydon
#21. I don't have huge bank accounts. I'd love one. But it wouldn't change much. 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.
John Lydon
#22. Punk was never about one particular clean-cut imagery ... it's about many, many individuals coming very loosely together.
John Lydon
#23. Being born into the Royal Family is like being born into a mental asylum. Marrying into it is not something to be taken lightly.
John Lydon
#24. Michael Jackson plays the wounded puppy very well. 'I must be the loneliest man in the world'. Well, you're not a man. And the loneliness is self inflicted, so sod off you pathetic puerile pimp. I wonder what color his willy is.
John Lydon
#25. 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.
John Lydon
#26. Do not stand in the middle, go to the right or to the left.
John Lydon
#27. I never wore a studded leather jacket, y'know. Ne-va!
John Lydon
#28. It's nice to be irritated. It's a very joyous thing.
John Lydon
#29. I hate death; it takes people away from you. You're left feeling rudderless.
John Lydon
#30. Books are like my one and only joy.
John Lydon
#31. Oscar Wilde turned the world upside down and was able to laugh at it, and hopefully by the time I'm 120 and worn out, that's what I will achieve. I love being alive so much.
John Lydon
#32. Every relationship must have a starting point so that past errors may remain in the past.
Mary Lydon Simonsen
#33. 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.
John Lydon
#34. Turn the other cheek too often and you get a razor through it.
John Lydon
#35. Parents have to instill the right principles in their children, but then it's up to the children to live up to those principles.
Mary Lydon Simonsen
#36. Any kind of history you read is basically the winning side telling you the others were bad.
John Lydon
#37. It's quite clear to me I'm not a sexist and I'm not a misogynist.
John Lydon
#38. When you talk like an asshole and look like an asshole, you're an asshole
John Lydon
#39. I love consumerism, TV culture, shopping malls. There's nothing I'd ever buy, but I like being there. It's wacky.
John Lydon
#41. Tactical Urbanism is pure American know-how. It is the common sense that housed, fed, and prospered an entire continent of penniless immigrants.
Mike Lydon
#42. I love conversation and the sharing of different thoughts and philosophies. That kind of stuff always makes me happy. I don't mind interviews, either - I like doing them.
John Lydon
#43. I never take any commitment lightly, and I certainly don't take my wife lightly. I never did and I never will. That's permanent. That's true love.
John Lydon
#44. For me, the best rock is not what you play - it's what you're not playing.
John Lydon
#45. 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.
John Lydon
#46. Analog, electronic, whatever it happens to be, I simply love and adore literally every aspect of making music.
John Lydon
#47. The so-called alleged 'art' of the video - well, the video has killed the radio star, but the video star killed the live musician, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
John Lydon
#49. I like America's diversity and its landscapes.
John Lydon
#50. My biggest fear is mindlessly and stupidly repeating myself.
John Lydon
#51. I'm no one's lap dog, you can't put me on a leash.
John Lydon
#52. I don't believe in pets. I like animals to be wild and free.
John Lydon
#53. I don't listen to music. I hate music.
John Lydon
#54. I'm not this callous clown walking around laughing at life all the time. I've had some serious, serious problems in my life. But I've come out with a smile.
John Lydon
#56. 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.
John Lydon
#57. The record companies fell apart - quite deservedly. Their corrupting, all-binding contract nonsense had to stop.
John Lydon
#58. I could never be a member of a single party. I want the best of all worlds, thank you.
John Lydon
#59. I always find the mirror in the dressing room is where the best artists are.
John Lydon
#60. I find Lady Gaga hilarious. And I kind of like her. My heart's warmed to her.
John Lydon
#61. I don't need a Rolls Royce, I don't need a house in the country, I don't want to have to live in France. I don't have any rock and roll heroes; they're all useless. The Stones and The Who don't mean anything anymore; they're established. The Stones are more of a business than a band
John Lydon
#62. There's many, many ways to write a song. But generally, sitting down at a table and writing is not one of them.
John Lydon
#63. Heaven is on this earth. There are no angels on the clouds with twanging harps ... That's just another man's fantasy.
John Lydon
#64. Don't accept the old order. Get rid of it.
John Lydon
#65. As a young concert-going person, I was never enamoured with celebrities who would walk out to feature in certain songs and then walk off.
John Lydon
#67. People think I hate the Royal Family, but that's not true.
John Lydon
#68. Over the years, during television interviews, whenever the host or the reviewer or whoever gets cynical and nasty with me, I will behave accordingly. I will defend myself.
John Lydon
#69. Punk became a circus didn't it? Everybody got it wrong. The message was supposed to be: Don't follow us, do what you want!
John Lydon
#70. I had an Irish Catholic education. Horrible nuns, vindictive and cruel.
John Lydon
#71. You'd have to be daft as a brush to say you didn't like Pink Floyd.
John Lydon
#73. If dolphins are so intelligent, how come they ain't got Walkmans?
John Lydon
#74. There's no harm in me. Really, I'm just a big kid.
John Lydon
#75. I've created several musical trends, really. That's not because I'm so far out and fabulous. It's because most bands have no ideas of their own. They're so desperate they'll grab at any old straw.
John Lydon
#76. I think I have something valid to say. My words are my bullets. I like to brag that somehow I got it right.
John Lydon
#77. All the things that you would have thought would have made me a professional A1 criminal ... wrong. I decided that was too lazy and easy, and because of the way British society is, quite frankly you were denied an education, so I got one of my own.
John Lydon
#78. You never know how things will work out. After all the bad reasons in the world, some good came out.
John Lydon
#79. I have values. But morals are Christian. There's no religion here. Values. Don't hurt when you don't need to, but don't let anybody step over that line - it's an invisible line, but it's respect for somebody's space.
John Lydon
#80. If anyone asks for your autograph they're showing you respect and give it back to them.
John Lydon
#81. Love 'em. Kool & the Gang, love 'em. What more can I say?
John Lydon
#82. You'll find that empty vessels make the most sound.
John Lydon
#83. Love is what you feel for a dog or a pussycat. It doesn't apply to humans.
John Lydon
#84. The real color of my hair is mouse. I always want to be ginger, which I was when I was born, or blond, because I live in L.A., and I want to look like I go surfing without any physical effort.
John Lydon
#85. I have a sensible set of values that tell me to never lie.
John Lydon
#86. You gotta bear in mind, the youth - and this is just in Britain alone - have nowhere to go in the evenings. They've closed all the social centers. There's not even a patch of grass to kick a ball on.
John Lydon
#87. Disco sucks? You never heard that from me.
John Lydon
#88. It's a loser's emblem (swastika), because the Nazis lost the war. It's ridiculous to suggest we are involved with fascists. All my best friends are black, gay, Irish or criminals.
John Lydon
#89. I like lime-flavoured yoghurt. The end. There is no religion. It's a man-made fabrication. Once you understand that, you'll be a happier individual. Atheism is as pointless as satanism.
John Lydon
#90. I'm 100% proud of the TV work I achieved. The work I did on shows on insects and Great White sharks ... stuff that's in school curriculums in England. Now they are showing up on Discovery Channel.
John Lydon
#91. Words cannot express quite a lot of feelings, whereas a noise or tone or drone or sound, an accordion falling down a staircase, can somehow capture an emotion much better.
John Lydon
#92. The only notes that matter come in a wad
John Lydon
#93. It's a repressive society where you can't be horrible, I'm not horrible, they made me horrible, I'm just honest.
John Lydon
#94. I was brought up and raised in Britain as a Labour man, and that quickly changed. And I find there are more working-class people in the Conservative Party than the Labour party.
John Lydon
#95. Here's how I understand music. If you can play the same bunch of noise twice, it's music. To go beyond that is supercilious and pontificating.
John Lydon
#96. Sometimes the most positive thing you can be in a boring society is absolutely negative.
John Lydon
#97. Situationism is a ludicrous proposition. It's ill-formed and it's perfectly French. That Gallic disposition towards common sense. L'Anarchie!
John Lydon
#98. I think national pride leads to nothing but wars and hate.
John Lydon
#99. For a gun-toting nation, Americans are surprisingly passive.
John Lydon
#100. I don't release records to be anything but enjoyable.
John Lydon
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