Talk:John Lydon

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• Fuck this and fuck that fuck it all and fuck [the] fucking brat!!!!! (Lyric from song "Bodies" by Sex Pistols, 1977)

• You don't create me I am me!

• I get pissed and DESTROY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

• I get tired of people screamin' at me! Stop it! (A comment he made to an auditioning band after their performance on Bodog Fight Battle Of The Bands)

• Turn the other cheek too often and you get a razor through it.

• I bet you don't hate us as much as we hate you.

• Love is 2 minutes and 52 seconds of squelching noises.

• There's nothing glorious in dying. Anyone can do it.

• Politicians are our natural enemies. It is us the people. We own this world. And we do this without violence. Violence is the weapon of the politician. We as a community of human beings must never allow ourselves to be dictated to ever again. The problem begins when you start taking a politician seriously.

• Sometimes the most positive thing you can be in a boring society is absolutely negative.

• Don't accept the old order. Get rid of it.

• Do not stand in the middle, go to the right or to the left.

• Fucking ignore the system, use it when it suits you.

• It's a repressive society where you can't be horrible, I'm not horrible, they made me horrible, I'm just honest.

• [on being attacked in a parking lot] "While I was being pounded to pieces, I was just thinking, 'Hell...oh, this is just so absurd.' You have to laugh because it's so...where do they come from?"

• You'll find that empty vessels make the most sound.

• (Asked about his "unfamous" language) Infamous language, you're joking. What language is that? I speak nothing but the fucking english language. That's the only thing I've been brought up with, and if that's infamous than ha ha ha tough shit.
  • Interview, 1977

• People don't like other poor people, and rather than blame the people that make you all poor, you blame each other.

• You'll get one number and one number only, 'cause I'm a lazy bastard!

• Do what I want, be honest to myself and then it would do good for others, that's all, full on.

• Anyone who's parading under a $100,00-plus video is not free from corporate. That's just the MTV advertising agency. I find them all to be just a bit of a sham.

• If you were to look back at me as a school kid you'd see a very quiet little church mouse kind of character.

• It's no good being nice and young and naive. There's no good in that at all. You've got to do it all yourself, and you've gotta learn quick. And you can't look for sympathy either.

• I'm no one's lap dog, you can't put me on a leash, and that was the attitude of it, fuck off.

• I feel nothing but grief, sorrow and sadness for Sid (VIcious). l've lost my friend, I couldn't have changed it, I was young. God I wish I was smarter... He's dead for fuck's sake.

• 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.

• [on his former manager, Malcolm McLaren] Let's just say that if Malcolm breathes, it's too much for me to stomach.

• Every time I see Bono in those big fly glasses and tight leather pants I just can't hack it. I can't see that as solving the world's problems. He's crushing his testicles in tight trousers for world peace.

• Volatile. Fully prepared to defend myself. (when asked how would he describe himself)

• Judge not others unless you're prepared to be judged!

• On Sid Vicious: "I could take on England, but I couldn't take on one heroin user."

• If you give me the chance, I'll destroy America for you.

• I think national pride leads to nothing but wars and hates.

• At the time we should have been tightest, we couldn't have been looser.

• (Talking about Britain's school education) They take your soul away. They take your brains away. They don't let you have an opinion that's different from theirs. You've got to think what they tell you to think. So when you leave school, your only future is getting married. And by the time you're about 29 you got two kids, and you just wanna commit suicide.

• (During a gig on the Sex Pistols' US Tour) See the fine, upstanding, young men Britain is chucking out these days.

• (Talking to a crowd) I'm not here for your amusement... You're here for mine!

• Rules are for fools.
  • BBC's 'The Seven Ages of Rock'

• Chaos was my philosophy. Oh yeah, have no rules. If people start to build fences around you, break out and do something else. You should never, ever be understood completely.

• The truth is far harder, but much more valid and worthwhile.

• (On the controversy of the Sex Pistols' recording God Save the Queen) You don't write a song like "God Save The Queen" because you hate the English race. You write a song like that because you love them, and you're sick of seeing them mistreated.

• (At the opening of the Hard Rock Casino in Las Vegas) I love it! It's so quintessentially American! It's a cross between a mausoleum of pop music and a temple of greed!

• Don't try and tell me Green Day are punk. They're not, they're plonk and they're bandwagoning on something they didn't come up with themselves. I think they are phony.