John Lydon Quotes

I showed what I can do with butter, right? Eighty-five percent increase in sales. I'm very proud of them Country Life ads. They were funny and clever and classy like the Toblerone ads I grew up with.

Destroy everything. That's all well and fine, but you got to offer something in it's place. Since I always have a point and purpose to what I do, thats why people accuse me of being calculated. it's the way I am. I always know my next move. I could never conjure up a death wish, this is all I have is life. I don't know what comes next, and frankly I'm in no rush to find out. I don't believe in playing a martyr just for the sheer hell of it. And for something as chidish as Rock 'N' Roll is not on.

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

If anyone asks for your autograph they're showing you respect and give it back to them.

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.

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

I'm sort of of the belief that people kill themselves from the inside out. When they're unhappy with what they're doing, or not achieving things - when your focus is off-kilter. The thing that keeps me ticking is my values. And I maintain them, because they're worthy. I like to wake up and feel I've done no wrong. I like that feeling.

We're Sex Pistols, we ain't fake.

I don't release records to be anything but enjoyable.

Books are like my one and only joy.

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.

[Replying to the question of the presenter: "where did the name "Sex Pistols" come from, who thought this name up?"] Some animal. I can't remember. It doesn't matter. It's history.

I'm just permanently agitated by everything and everyone.

Obama's dense as a doorbell; not much going on up there - it's a wooden top.

I nearly die of fear before I go on stage. Something wicked. I can't eat a thing the day before a gig.

You have moments of grief in life, and if you can put pen to paper and capture that, that's something wonderful. I can revisit actual songs about past deaths, and I know that emotion is as true now as it was then.

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

I mean, the genuine roots of culture is folk music.

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

Maybe I'm a prehistoric monster by being an individual. It's highly likely. All I offer to others is their own individuality. Grab it!

I like America's diversity and its landscapes.

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

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 wanted to wear the most impenetrable suit of armour ever known to mankind. 'Hello, Mr. Rotten ... ' You can't say anything about me. You can't put me down in any way shape or form - I'm rotten to the core ... you know, what's left for you? Pleasantries? I suppose the worst insult you could sling my way is 'Oh, he's really nice, him.'

It's nice to be a part of history but people should get it right. I may not be perfect, but I'm bloody close.

I keep falling off the edge of the stage because I can't see it. I can't see my wrinkles in the mirror either, though.

If you are pissing people off, you know you are doing something right

I have no time for lies and fantasy, and neither should you. Enjoy or die ...

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.

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

The idea of hearing, 'Great gig, man,' one more time just turns my stomach over.

Just because people think politically different to you doesn't mean they're inhuman.

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.

Love is two minutes fifty-two seconds of squishing noises. It shows your mind isn't clicking right.

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.

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.

When you come from desperate poverty, and that's exactly what I come from, you know that nonsenses are not to be tolerated. I'm not sure who gains from chaos, but I know it's not the poor folks in the council flats. The politics of vindictiveness is never, ever anything like a solution.

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

I'm very open about my politics. I don't believe in any political party at all, none of them.

I love America. I love Americans.

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.

You should never, ever be understood completely. That's like the kiss of death, isn't it? It's a full stop. I don't ever think you should put full stops on thoughts. They change.

I always find the mirror in the dressing room is where the best artists are.

I love discordancy. It makes people ill at ease and wakes up a part of their brain that's normally asleep.

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

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

My inspiration is everything that the human being gets up to.

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.

If you can sort out why you feel the way you do then you might be in better shape to meet your maker.

Love is 2 minutes and 52 seconds of squelching noises.

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

Before the Sex Pistols, music was so bloody serious, all run by university graduates. It was all head music devoid of any real intellectualism. There was no deep though in it, merely images pertaining to something mystical, too stupid and absolutely devoid of reality. How on earth were we supposed to relate to that music when we lived in council flats? We had no money, no job, no nothing. So the Pistols projected that anger, that rock-bottom working-class hate.

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.

I've always despised the hippies.

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'm not great at dealing with death, I have to say. I find death very hard: my mum, my dad, Sid Vicious. I'm not a monster; I feel it and it scares me. One death at a time, please, is all my heart will bear.

I do use my music to entertain myself, as indeed I use other people's music.

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

The sounds of anger are not melodic.

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.

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.

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.

There have been conversations here in the United States about why every ex-President opens a library when politicians do not read the books. Hello, America! Kind of explains your politics. For me, reading saved me, it brought me back.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

I love a bit of flag-waving.

Live music is healthy.

Only the fakes survive.

What do you have to do to get people to take an interest? I'm not going to go out and cause a silly sex scandal just to sell a record!

There are some Rolling Stones songs that are just stunners.

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.

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!

My biggest fear is mindlessly and stupidly repeating myself.

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

Simon Le Bon spotted me having a problem there, and he went, 'Don't you know who he is?' and that was it, I was in. I thought, 'Bloody hell, it takes Duran Duran to get Johnny Rotten into a building!' I liked him as a bloke, and I like a lot of their songs. I like 'Girls On Film', and I can't pretend otherwise.

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

My reputation is a media creation.

Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?

Remaining childish is a tremendous state of innocence.

I don't believe in pets. I like animals to be wild and free.

If you have something to say then you want someone to pay attention or at least to have the opportunity for them to tell you to shut up and go away.

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.

I'm in England so often I haven't really left, but Americans aren't at all like they're misrepresented through their politicians.

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.

Anger is an energy. It really bloody is. It's possibly the most powerful one-liner I've ever come up with. When I was writing the Public Image Ltd song 'Rise', I didn't quite realize the emotional impact that it would have on me, or anyone who's ever heard it since. I wrote it in an almost throwaway fashion, off the top of my head, pretty much when I was about to sing the whole song for the first time, at my then new home in Los Angeles. It's a tough, spontaneous idea. 'Rise' was looking at the context of South Africa under apartheid. I'd be watching these horrendous news reports on CNN, and so lines like 'They put a hotwire to my head, because of the things I did and said', are a reference to the torture techniques that the apartheid government was using out there. Insufferable. You'd see these reports on TV and in the papers, and feel that this was a reality that simply couldn't be changed. So, in the context of 'Rise', 'Anger is an energy' was an open statement, saying, 'Don't view anger negatively, don't deny it – use it to be creative.' I combined that with another refrain, 'May the road rise with you'. When I was growing up, that was a phrase my mum and dad – and half the surrounding neighbourhood, who happened to be Irish also – used to say. 'May the road rise, and your enemies always be behind you!' So it's saying, 'There's always hope', and that you don't always have to resort to violence to resolve an issue. Anger doesn't necessarily equate directly to violence. Vio

The day I run out of ideas is the day I stop making records.

I'd love to have been born into a wealthy family. I might have turned out even more marvellous than I am now ...

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!

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

I could take on England, but I couldn't take on one heroin user.

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.

When you talk like an asshole and look like an asshole, you're an asshole

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!

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

If I'm left to my own devices, I will be tempted to make the most unlistenable music possible.

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.