Top 100 Sayings About The 80s
#1. Back in the '80s and '90s, when GM was consistently posting giant profits, they were simultaneously firing tens of thousands of workers in my hometown of Flint and across Michigan.
Michael Moore
#2. People link the 80s to that very liberal theme, growing up in a very liberal world, having ideals or not having ideals. The 80s were an confusing era.
Sam De Jong
#3. I have the utmost respect for synthesizers - Soft Cell, early Depeche Mode. But that's become a cliche for the '80s.
Ariel Rechtshaid
#4. The '80s to me, more than anything else, represents a time of real criminal activity in the office of the president: an incredibly disparate economy in terms of the class distinctions and whatnot, and a tremendous shallowness - a lot of sort of bank robbery by executives.
Martha Plimpton
#5. I think the action movies in the 80s and 90s were different. It was a testosterone age. Steven Seagal, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Sylvester Stallone - they fuelled my childhood. But now I don't think I'd like to do just action, I don't enjoy that.
Channing Tatum
#6. The '80s market was only a Japanese market. It was the Japanese outbidding each other for the most expensive works of art. When the Japanese economy went down the tubes, there was no one left to pay the prices that have been recorded for all of those works.
Arne Glimcher
#7. I grew up in the '80s and John Hughes was the filmmaker making serious movies for teenagers.
Nicolas Winding Refn
#8. Music was segregated in the '80s, and then in the '90s the boundaries started to break down, and rock kids got into electronic music. But then you got this reverse snobbery where people would only listen to electronic music and not rock.
Thomas Bangalter
#9. We didn't understand irony yet in the '80s; we just kind of existed at face value, so there was no nerd cool yet because the digital revolution was still in its infancy.
Chris Hardwick
#10. I know it's not the '80s anymore, but the '80s are back with a vengeance. Get yourself some neon; whether it's a cute sneaker, a pump or a cross-body bag, add to your wardrobe a pop of neon.
Brad Goreski
#11. I was the first journalist allowed on a hunting boat during harp seal season in almost 15 years. Around the late 1970s, white coat pups became the poster child for the anti-fur movement, and by the '80s, the media was lambasting the hunters for killing them.
Brian Skerry
#12. I had ballooned out to close to 400 pounds at one point. And in the '80s, we were just beginning to get on video and disco. So therefore, I did not fit in, and my record company let me go because they said, 'Look, you're just not marketable enough with the weight problem.'
Jennifer Holliday
#13. I was a total music nerd. I grew up on Perry Street in the '80s. My father wrote books about jazz, so I was always at the 'Village Vanguard.'
Andrew Wyatt
#14. AIDS had landed and I was terrified. I was very scared, just as everyone was in the '80s. It was really hard to be sexually active and to sleep with men and with women and not feel you had a responsibility in terms of having safe sex.
Michael Stipe
#15. Comedy is like music; it builds on itself. Once someone comes up with a theory or a different way of doing things, people start to mimic it on some level. That's why you go back to the guys you loved in the 80s ... and it just seems tired now, because it was all foundation.
Doug Stanhope
#16. My kids are around pit bulls every day. In the '70s they blamed Dobermans, in the '80s they blamed German Shepherds, in the '90s they blamed the Rottweiler. Now they blame the Pit Bull.
Cesar Millan
#17. Bowling really was a big American sport in the '50s, '60s, and '70s, and then it kind of died off in the '80s.
Chris Hardwick
#18. Maybe in the 90s or possibly in the next century people will look upon the 80s as the age of masturbation, when it was taken to the limit; that might be all that's going on right now in a big way.
Bob Dylan
#19. 80s music sounds so 80s now. But in the 80s, it just sounded like music.
Jeffrey Tucker
#20. I grew up in the '80s, and there was no bigger group than New Edition in R&B. I broke my piggy bank so me and my mom could go to a New Edition concert together.
Ruben Studdard
#21. One of my favorite eras is the '80s. I'm an '80s baby to the world, love everything about the '80s.
Deon Cole
#22. My mum is deeply, deeply a man's woman, a man's muse. Maybe because I'm a kid from the '80s, I'm a bit more dominant. I wanted to be the muse and the director also. I wanted to be the man and the woman.
Lou Doillon
#23. I remember in the '80s, Randy Travis was my guy. He's the reason I moved to Nashville, and I just loved him. But at some point when he was winning everything, you find yourself pulling for other people.
Garth Brooks
#24. Television in the '80s was very limited. There was no Food Network.
Wolfgang Puck
#25. I've always been fascinated with Ireland, especially Northern Ireland, having lived in London in the '80s when there was an Irish republican bombing campaign there.
John Gordon Sinclair
#26. It's like, what happened, I was always leading fashion, and then the grunge thing kind of came along. And because I've been so on top in the '80s you know, I, you know, what can I do? Suddenly go grunge?
Billy Idol
#27. In the '80s, I was the only game in town, I was the only one getting that kind of exposure in any rotation on MTV. Now with internet culture it seems like everyone is doing music parodies. And they're not all good!
Al Yankovic
#28. I like being 35, I like having a bit of money to spend on music and useless gadgets. The net is providing new ways to communicate and cooperate that just didn't exist in the 80s.
Malcolm Wilson
#29. Athol Fugard became famous as a playwright, so although 'Tsotsi' the book was written in the '60s, it was only published in the '80s. It was then optioned pretty much every year by producers. I think the problem was that holding onto its period setting made it very hard to get finance.
Gavin Hood
#30. I should have lived through the '80s, not been born in it. My style is a mix of hip-hop and '80s casual.
Michael Socha
#31. I was born in the late '50s, was a child of the '60s, then the '70s, then the '80s, then the '90s, and I have mental fingers in all those pies.
Jello Biafra
#32. I guess, on my list, going back to some old American stuff and British stuff that I used to love in the '80s, would be a British show called Dad's Army, which recently just turned into a movie.
Rhys Darby
#33. I was fortunate enough to hook up with Quincy Jones and had a lot of success. But the music of the '80s really changed when the '90s hit. For me to chase that dream or career of music, I started a family, started on 'Melrose Place,' so it was something I didn't have the time or energy.
Jack Wagner
#34. Comedy clubs were something that came to pass in the '80s, but toward the end of that, in the early '90s, people started doing comedy again in alternative spaces.
Eugene Mirman
#35. The '80s was wild compared to my real small childhood, which was late '70s.
Ice Cube
#36. The '80s were a much simpler time, mainly because the only superhero movie franchise anyone could complain about was Superman, and the Internet didn't exist so you couldn't even complain about it to too many people - just, like, your mom and maybe your imaginary friend or whatever
Brian Alan Ellis
#37. Showing your femininity should help your career and not go against your career. Dressing like a man, using the suit to look powerful - that was the '80s, and that didn't help women.
Donatella Versace
#38. We lost our minds in the '80s and '90s; we really as a society just felt that everyone could only care about themselves. There was no responsibility to discuss what's going on in your town, your state, your nation. And it was a blast, it was really fun, but it doesn't work.
Adam McKay
#39. Batman is not a very interesting character. For any actor. There is simply not much to play. I think Michael Keaton did it the best, and I wish good luck to Ben Affleck. But, you know who would have made a great Batman? Alec Baldwin in the '80s.
Quentin Tarantino
#40. Back in the 80s we were very cautious about steroids.
Dorian Yates
#41. It was a different sexual situation going on than it is in the '80s and '90s, and I did a very poor job of describing that.
Wilt Chamberlain
#42. I was worried in the '80s that the best abstract painting had become obsessed with materiality, and painterly gestures and materiality were up against the wall.
Frank Stella
#43. People define themselves to some degree by the music that they listened to as teens. My mom had Elvis. Me, I had 'The Who' and later punk rock. Kids who came up in the '80s had other songs and bands. It's a way of placing ourselves culturally and temporally.
Jennifer Egan
#44. I have had some sorry-ass looks, but I'm the first one to laugh. I'm either to credit or to blame for the '80s.
Jon Bon Jovi
#46. I was a choreographer in the '80s and I was doing these videos. I did an Extreme video, which was really weird having them here. I did "Get the Funk Out".
Adam Shankman
#47. The heart of the gameplay is still about choice and consequence, which is what I've been doing since the '80s.
Warren Spector
#48. I'm a big fan of the '80s fantasy genre that I grew up watching, movies like "Krull" and "Clash of the Titans" and "Time Bandits" and all that stuff.
Zooey Deschanel
#49. The gaming world is a complete mystery to me! Well, I did play Pac Man and Frogger using big machines at an arcade back in the '80s.
Doug Jones
#50. The simplest way to do something cool is the cross-turn. Like in the '80s - Michael Jackson did it. You jump and cross your legs together at the same time, and then spin out of it. That's it.
Heather Morris
#51. Italy in the 1920s, Germany in the '30s, East Germany in the '50s, Czechoslovakia in the '60s, the Latin American dictatorships in the '70s, China in the '80s and '90s - all dictatorships and would-be dictators target newspapers and journalists.
Naomi Wolf
#52. I once owned a really, really ugly pair of white leather boots. They were so bad. It was back in the '80s! It was just a really tacky fashion choice when I was in middle school, and I thought it was cool. I'm really embarrassed.
Jordana Brewster
#53. Back in the '80s and '90s, you could hit the quarterback low, you could hit the quarterback high. You could hit him pretty much late.
Vinny Testaverde
#54. My roles in the '80s were, like, gender dysphoric. I wasn't pretty, I wasn't this, I wasn't that. And I am kind of butchy, you know. That's just my thing.
Pamela Adlon
#55. In the '80s, Ronald Reagan inspired me to become politicized, because I grew up in that era when everything I cared about was under attack.
Michael Franti
#56. There was a thing during those times in the '80s where it was like Sex Pistols then Nirvana and nothing in between.
Mike Watt
#57. I became somewhat reclusive during a period of time in the '80s.
Corey Hart
#58. Everyone in the '80s was reading Tolkien; he invented this whole medieval fantasy genre.
William Kircher
#59. I never thought I'd be a comedian. But, growing up, I simply loved watching comedy. The '80s was huge for comedy in the US. Eddie Murphy blew me away with his film Delirious.
Arj Barker
#61. I was a teenager in the '80s - and maybe I'm wrong about this - but it seemed like a bad era for movies that were scary. It was really the height of movies that were disgusting.
Chuck Klosterman
#62. But trust me, if I lived in the '80s, I would definitely be the one going to the record stores.
Julianne Hough
#63. I was 7 years old when the '80s began and 17 years old when they ended, so it was an incredibly formative decade for me.
Ernest Cline
#64. I grew up in southern California in the '80s. Yes, I am a walking cliche.
John Scalzi
#66. When I was about 19, my stepmother said - because this was back in the '80s - that I had Robert Wagner's pompadour. I said, 'What are you talking about? You mean the guy from 'Hart to Hart?'
Michael Weatherly
#67. I'm a big action junkie. I grew up on the '80s action movies - the bad ones and the good ones.
Jonathan Tropper
#68. Sugar was an issue in the '80s, so you would see low-sugar products; fat was an issue in the '90s, so you'd see low-fat products.
Michael Moss
#69. The hits I had in the '80s - I made those deals directly with American companies.
Dan Hill
#70. I always enjoy it when I walk on stage. There were some times when I was working so much in the '80s, and I felt really burnt-out. But I'd be up there singing and not be 10,000 million miles away, you know, just opening my mouth and the words coming out.
George Strait
#71. When I was a kid I was really into horror films. I watched every single horror film that came out in the 80s.
David Hayter
#72. I was a child of the '80s.
Rob Lowe
#73. When some of the gangs got involved with the drug trade, particularlythe crack cocaine trade, and the lethal violence started to flare up in the '80s, then there was a great deal of public attention on gangs and a great deal of concern about what was going on in these social groups.
Meda Chesney-Lind
#74. I'm embarrassed to reveal that I never went to CBGB's in the '80s. I was never cool enough to be a punk, and I wouldn't have had the stamina, or the discipline, for straight-edge.
Stacey D'Erasmo
#75. I grew up in the 80s and that was the first time advertising was considered seriously as anything resembling an art form.
Stanley Donwood
#76. In the '80s, I was the only one who didn't watch the shows about teenagers. I had to go over to friends' houses to see them. I still don't have a TV!
Clemence Poesy
#77. I grew up in New Jersey in the '80s. That means one thing: Big hair ... I had big hair, my boyfriends had big hair, we all had big hair. Our prom looked like the poodle division of the Westminster dog show.
Jancee Dunn
#78. I feel sorry for the '90s, because it was never able to be anything much more than the hangover to the party that was the '80s.
Simon Le Bon
#79. In the recording process I do listen to other artists a lot and other albums and albums I am loving lately, or ones that I still love that came out in the 80s or 70s.
William Beckett
#80. I think models have a lot less power than they did in the '80s, when there were, like, only 10 supermodels who could dictate the rules, whereas now there's so many, and that changes the power dynamic and makes it a more insecure business.
Lily Cole
#81. You have to also provide a video for it, look a certain way and big hair ... If you're a woman it's even more strange with fake fingernails and corsets and all this stuff that was big in the 80s.
Ann Wilson
#82. Hollywood's thinking is very typical. And it's just really predictable too. And I think at Hollywood, these box office movies are flopping. I mean, there hasn't been an original thought coming out of Hollywood since the '80s.
Andrea Tantaros
#83. I like Florida. Everything is in the 80s. The temperatures, the ages and the IQ's.
George Carlin
#84. I'm not a novelty act from the '80s in most parts of the world.
George Michael
#85. If I'm not barefoot, you'll probably find me with a pair of New Balance on. And I'm not one of those hipster-jump-on-the-band-wagon-ironically-cool NB fans. I've been rocking those kicks since they were true nerd shoes. Since the '80s, yo! Word.
Reid Scott
#86. In the '70s it was skateboards, in the '80s it was drugs, in the '90s it was art, and now it's my family.
Anthony
#87. I guess personally I really like "Take on Me" by Aha. I think it just defines the 80s and how insane it was and like neon and like calculator watches and that whole thing.
Evan Peters
#88. Bonobo studies started in the '70s and came to fruition in the '80s. Then in the '90s, all of a sudden, boom, they ended because of the warfare in the Congo. It was really bad for the bonobo and ironic that people with their warfare were preventing us from studying the hippies of the primate world.
Frans De Waal
#89. Getting trapped back in the '80s, it's almost like a comic nightmare, which for me is a very real nightmare. Every time I flip through the cable, I have flashbacks.
John Cusack
#90. Jesus is magic, because he turned water into wine. I think he made the statue of liberty disappear in the 80s or something.
Sarah Silverman
#91. In the '80s, I can't say that Amy and I were aware of an independent film community. We could only get a certain amount of money for our pictures, which made them low budget movies, but they were distributed through studios.
Griffin Dunne
#92. I really love rap music. I grew up in the '80s and '90s with Public Enemy, N.W.A., LL Cool J - I'm a hip-hop encyclopedia. But I got kind of frustrated with the chauvinistic side of rap music, the one that makes it hard to write songs about love and relationships.
Mayer Hawthorne
#93. I like the movie 'Das Boot,' the German film made in the '80s. I found out it was a series that was made into a film for the U.S.
Courtney Gains
#94. There's something about Michael J. Fox that I loved when he did all the '80s stuff. His way of performing all the physicality, which is why it's so tragic now, but the way he used his body so much as well, I loved.
James McAvoy
#95. In the '80s, I got tired of the rat race. It was a terrible time for music. I wasn't part of that whole MTV craze. I did 'Go Ahead and Rain,' which was Madeleine Stowe's first bit, but felt no connection to it. I went many years where I didn't have to work.
J. D. Souther
#96. I'm thinking about some developments say in the 80s when the anti-apartheid movement began to claim more support and strength within the US. Black trade unionists played a really important role in developing this US anti-apartheid movement.
Angela Davis
#97. I would absolutely love to go back to the simplicity of the '80s, where there wasn't texting, social media, iPhones, or smartphones. I love the fact that you would go home and check your messages. I'm not well suited to the world of modern technology.
Matthew Rhys
#98. I can't remember too much about the '80s, to be honest with you ... I wish that weren't true, but it is.
Colin Hay
#99. There was a great magazine in the '80s called 'Cinemagic' for home moviemakers who liked to do monster and special effects movies. It was like a magazine written just for me.
Peter Jackson
#100. The '80s seem a real positive force. The '70s were deadening, in a lot of ways.
Paul Kantner
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