John Lydon's Quotes

Occasionally, a re-enactment is a fine thing. I love Civil War re-enactments.

One of the most beautiful things about Britain, apart from the NHS and the free education, is the British Army.

People should never allow themselves to be dictated to by media.

People think I hate the Royal Family, but that's not true.

Remaining childish is a tremendous state of innocence.

Rules are important, but they're temporary and they're always supposed to be changed.

Situationism is a ludicrous proposition. It's ill-formed and it's perfectly French. That Gallic disposition towards common sense. L'Anarchie!

The joy of life is in the work.

The record companies fell apart - quite deservedly. Their corrupting, all-binding contract nonsense had to stop.

There are no limits to where our brains can take us. We are, if there be a God, God's gracious creation.

There are some Rolling Stones songs that are just stunners.

There's many, many ways to write a song. But generally, sitting down at a table and writing is not one of them.

There's no harm in me. Really, I'm just a big kid.

U2 - that's a band that never should have existed. There's no life experience in any of their songs.

Until I see an Arab country, a Muslim country, with a democracy, I won't understand how anyone can have a problem with how they're treated.

When I write, my brain moves faster than my hands so I'm always trying to picture things.

When you grew up like me and my four brothers, you end up feeling somewhat inadequate, like somehow you don't count.

You can always wake up on the wrong side of the bed and, boo-hiss, everyone suffers. We can all be temperamental.

Listen, you know this: If there's not a rebellious youth culture, there's no culture at all. It's absolutely essential. It is the future. This is what we're supposed to do as a species, is advance ideas.

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.

I don't believe in pets. I like animals to be wild and free. But I can sit and watch an ant run up and down the floor for hours. I use a magnifying glass to look at the beautiful shape of the thing.

I hate the technological rip-offs that pass for music formats these days, and go back to vinyl to hear a good record because the sound is always so much fuller. I don't even like listening to music in the car.

I love American ski resorts because they're open to everyone, are not incredibly expensive. They're not snobby and you can have fun all day long on the most excellent mountains.

I love boating - not flash, 'noisy go fast' nonsense, but the general relaxation of it. My wife and I love to get in our little Wellcraft and go as far out to sea as we can, hopefully beyond land. That is the best thing you can ever do. It clears your psyche.

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.

I love Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart because they're bringing irony back into American humor, which is a delicious treat. The entire Colbert persona of being extreme right-wing when he's not at all is highly amusing. He does it so well, but sometimes a little too well. My wife is convinced he's completely that way.

I was a very sickly boy when I was young; nearly died when I was 7. I had a life-threatening attack of meningitis, and that put me in a coma for a few months. It took me four years to get my memory back.

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.

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.

I've been asked over the years to compile a list of desert-island discs. I couldn't do that. If I was trapped on a desert island, I don't think I'd want 10 songs to bring with me.

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.

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.

I've had great pleasure meeting the likes of Newt Gingrich and having a chat with the fellow on a staircase. I found him completely dishonest and totally likeable, because he doesn't care! He knows what a politician is, and he's a perfect embodiment of one.

I've never told anyone this. But I suffer from terrible stage fright. True. You can't tell though, can you? Unbelievable, the panic. I nearly die of fear before I go on stage. Something wicked. I can't eat a thing the day before a gig. It'd make me vomit.

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.

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.

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.

Look, if the Situationists achieved what they wanted, they would be very unhappy and they would have to be Situationists all over again. It's a never-ending process.

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.

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.

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.

Records were vitally important to the development of music and of all music cultures. With that being pushed by the wayside, I can't see an iPod uniting us. In fact it separates us, the streets are full of people bumping into lamp posts, listening to their own little universe, and there's no sharing in that.

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.

These days young kids don't have any place to form an epic adventure. It's more often in front of the TV screen or a laptop. That's very hard on them. They're being taught daily unsocial skills. Facebook is an unsocial skill. It's so sad.

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.

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.

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.

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.

You need the past as a guideline. The history of music is a good basis, but to escape that stuff, that tortuous rulebook, you have to learn it first. It's kind of like religion - once you've written the Bible, that's it, move on.

You're made to feel ugly, and I made ugly beautiful. Just by sheer persistence. Nobody has the right to say that I am ugly, and I will not be a professional victim, you know. Sorry!

Gossip is a very dangerous tool. We should be more wary of the gossiper, and not the gossip they're trying to relay to you.

I don't tolerate liars. When somebody lies to me, that's really, like, just unbearable.

I have one major problem with the Internet: It's full of liars.

Heaven is on this earth. There are no angels on the clouds with twanging harps... That's just another man's fantasy.

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.

I never thought of Green Day as a punk band. Just bubblegum, really.

It's nice to be irritated. It's a very joyous thing.

You'd have to be daft as a brush to say you didn't like Pink Floyd.

Americans being upright and forthright and honest and true to themselves is a very hard concept.

Analog, electronic, whatever it happens to be, I simply love and adore literally every aspect of making music.

Art should be life. It's an imitation of life. It should have some humanity in it.

As a human being, I'm work in process.

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.

Books are like my one and only joy.

Britain's an island; it's always had a constant ebb and flow of immigration - it makes it a better place.

For me, the best rock is not what you play - it's what you're not playing.

Freedom isn't to do what you want at somebody else's expense.

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.

I always knew the Sixties wasn't a revolution. It really was just a bunch of university students with wealthy parents having fun.

I applaud the effort it takes to put a record together.

I cannot comprehend fundamentalism. It's fundamentally wrong.

I could never be a member of a single party. I want the best of all worlds, thank you.

I don't believe in anarchy, because it will ultimately amount to the power of the bully, with weapons.

I don't like the monikers, and I don't like being pigeonholed. You know, I'm a human being.