Quotes

[on modern music] The most successful stuff is sold to you as indispensable social information. The message in the music is, 'We are terribly, terribly slick and suave, and if you listen to us, you can probably get a leg up in society, too.'

[in 1977] Punk rock is a word used by dilettantes and heartless manipulators about music that takes up the energies, the bodies, the hearts, the souls, the time and the minds of young men who give everything they have to it.

[on his band The Stooges] That band could kill any band at the time and frankly can just kill any bands that built on this work since...just eat any of those poodles.

[on Canadian Television in 1977] I don't know Johnny Rotten [John Lydon], but I'm sure he puts as much blood and sweat into what he does as Sigmund Freud did.

[when asked by Dinah Shore what influenced his music] The industrialism in Detroit...what I heard walking around...boom boom bah - 10 cars...boom boom bah - 20 cars...I get a lot of my influence from the electric shaver...

[on The Stooges's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010] We've been rejected seven times, and we would have set a record, I think, if it happened again. It started to feel like Charlie Brown and the football. I had about two hours of a strong emotional reaction after hearing the news. It felt like vindication. Then I kind of scratched my head and thought, 'Am I still cool? Or is that over now?'

Onstage, I've been hit by a grapefruit, beer cans, eggs, spit, money, cigarette butts, mandies, Quaaludes, joints, panties, and a fist.

Studios are like hospitals. A lot of people check in and they don't check out.

Touring is hard work and I won't kid you - we put a lot into it, but it's just been really, really good. We're really fucking good! I don't usually like bragging, but we're good. [But in Barcelona in 2012] I was irritated about something and I wanted to make an impression, so I unwisely tried to do a dive off a ten-foot stage. I cracked skulls with some bald guy. There was a lot of blood and I had to have stitches over my eye.

[on performing new material in 2013] Honestly, it was a stretch for me to sing with a loud and sometimes violent rock band, which is sort of what the band has matured into. My own life has become a little farther flung than that, and my last two albums was singing everything from 'Autumn Leaves' to Serge Gainsbourg songs. I noticed it connect with certain people in certain ways, but it was difficult for me.

[on The Clash] Like the Clash were going to make the world politically correct for everybody's benefit - but only if you kept buying Clash records. I never really went for the righteousness.

[on David Bowie] David's friendship was the light of my life. I never met such a brilliant person. He was the best there is.

I am the Pas-sen-ger/ I ride and I ride/ I see the stars come out tonight/ I see the city's grim backside...

[on describing his own music] It's intrusive music but only to squares. Only intrusive to squares. It's fun. It's for fun.

I'm proud of everything I have ever done onstage. Everything.

[on David Bowie] When I was not doing much in 1975, he invited me to come along on his world tour "Station to Station", in '76. And I had never seen anybody in my life work as hard as that guy did. I mean, he was getting up at 8 in the morning to travel by car, he didn't fly, by car, all day to the gig. In the car would always be a fresh collection of the newest tapes by artists from all over the world. Studying stuff, listening to it. Okay, Tom Waits, he knew about Tom Waits before anybody. Kraftwerk, he knew about Kraftwerk before anybody. So, not just "Oh, I'm into this kind of music, man, and that's all I like". He gets to the town, does a couple of interviews, catches a half-hour sleep and he's on stage doing the show. Then after the show, the guy won't stop. He's out checking out whatever band is in town, knocking on the guitarist's door, 4 in the morning "Let's write a new song". I was exhausted just watching him.

[asked about the American rock scene in 1995] The 'music' is mostly 60's and 70's rehash, especially Led Zeppelin, who I never could stand in the first place. Also, 'folk-rock' is back as 'alternative', gimme a break. The 'bands' dress this mess up in various 'HIP' clothes and 'political' postures to encode a 'lock' on social belonging which you can open by purchasing a combination of products, especially their own. None of them have fuck-all to say.