Thom Yorke Quotes

To protest, I stood in the place of a waste receptacle and opened my mouth. That's how I lost my virginity *laughs*

It's a fine line between writing something with genuine emotional impact and turning into little idiots feeling sorry for ourselves and playing stadium rock.

Treefingers is important, it's the point in which our protagonist crosses the icy tundra that is how to disappear completely to reach the island of Optimistic. But seriously, kill yourself.

I don't even have children, it's just been an excuse to play jenga and hit softballs in my backyard with a box of laundry detergant wearing baby clothes.

I don't really think of most non-English as people, more or less indigenous squirrels that I fancy to kick around with my snakeskin French Persian Boots

I tell you what's really ridiculous
going into a bookstore and there's all these books about yourself. In a way, it feels like you're already dead.

I can be very drunk in a club in Oxford on a Monday night, and some guy comes up to you and buys you a drink and says that the last record you made changed his life. That means something.

Bulletproof is about the fact that I was shot in the face and survived. Nah I'm joking that'd be grisly and awful.

If Bono can release an album out of nowhere then so can I!

I think escape is sort of like coming to a show with ten thousand other people and responding to that moment. Sharing that moment - that's escape.

Well actually I'm not a man but a carrot. The band was eating salads one day and a carrot fell off of the salad bar onto a microphone and the band realized that they had just discovered something brilliant. Me.

Obviously, the duty of artists is there, but it's more an indictment of the political system that someone like Zinn views artists as the seers, idealizing them as the people responsible for inspiring change.

I feel like, as musicians, we need to fight the Spotify thing. I feel that in some ways what's happening in the mainstream is the last gasp of the old industry. Once that does finally die, which it will, something else will happen.

What's the difference between Thom Yorke and a pizza? Pizza's not as cheesy and delicious as Thom Yorke.

Sometimes the nicest thing to do with a guitar is just look at it.

If we replaced all of our guns with chicken sandwiches it would end all war immediately.

I'm horrified of leprechauns. I'm horrified that I might be leprechauns.

Generally speaking, if people are prepared to stick their heads above the power pit, like Zinn says, and absorb what's going on around them, it makes them think.

If you Americans aren't from the stone age then explain to me how your president is a ****ing pterodactyl

My father beat me with a curtain rod when I was nine, (That was) the inspiration for Creep

It's maybe a good thing to try to make music that feels reassuring in some ways - something that's got a good feeling, a good vibe about it.

In pitch dark I go walkin' in your landscape Broken branches trip me as I speak Just 'cause you feel it doesn't mean it's there We are accidents waiting Waiting to happen

Far up above, aliens hover Making home movies for the folks back home Of all these weird creatures that lock up their spirits Drill holes in themselves and live for their secrets

Do you think Radiohead is my whole goddamn life? I also have a roadside cart where I sell apples and mincemeat pies.

In an interstellar burst I am back to save the universe In a fast German car I'm amazed that I survived An airbag saved my life

I stopped showering ever since I realized water causes people to drown. I cannot risk being so close to something that can murder me. Do you let killers into your house? Oh, but you let a murderer come out of your own faucet. Hypocrite.

This was something that was obsessing me and creating a writer's block. To get involved and get stuck in, get the proper information about what's going on has really helped.

Someone once asked me how the universe was created, I told him it all began with Pablo Honey

Are you feeling lucky? Cause I'm on a roll.

If I was an owl, I would peck your eyes out. Wow this lyric is ****ing brilliant.

It's impossible being me, I radiate a glow that makes others turn and grimace in horror as if staring into the sun.

I don't think young people are as demoralized as the media and government would like us to think. The obvious sign of that is how strong and how close personal connections are and how much people are able to build a life for themselves, despite all this stuff that's been thrown at them.

I am the greatest thing to happen to black music.

I use various soaps and hand sanitizers in the shower. I shower maybe fifteen times a day, but Thom Yorke is never really clean *laughs*.

I'm such a tease and you're such a flirt Routines and schedules A drug that'll kill you

I'm celibate. It's not that I'm a religious or moral person or anything, it's just, if you aren't ****ing Thom Yorke, what's the point? Actually, just kidding, Thom Yorke and I **** all the time. Hehehe. Had you.

I think sometimes all the charities are doing is mopping up the blood. It's a shame.

I grew up under Thatcher. I grew up believing that I was fundamentally powerless. Then gradually over the years it occurred to me that this was actually a very convenient myth for the state.

Chicken Little change my life when I was younger. I had no idea chickens could talk *laughs*.

You'll go to hell for what your dirty mind is thinking.

My big problem with corporate structure is this bizarre sense of loyalty you're supposed to feel
towards what is basically a virus. It grows or dies, like any virus. And you use it for your own selfish ends. - source

If you forget about the money issue for just a minute, if it's possible to do that - because these are people's livelihoods we're talking about - and you look at Internet in terms of the most amazing broadcasting network ever built, then it's completely different. In some ways, that's the best way of looking at it.

If I could be any animal I would be a pony because then I could have sex with ponies.

My uncle used to sit me on his lap and play "ventriloquist", only I wasn't wearing pants.

Well, it only dawned on me about six months ago that not everybody's against me all the time. It was something of a revelation.

When I go forwards, you go backwards And somewhere we will meet

I often steal sandwiches, eat them, and put the container's back., with a signed autograph of my self in its place. It's my way of giving back to society.

One of the interesting things here is that the people who should be shaping the future are politicians. But the political framework itself is so dead and closed that people look to other sources, like artists, because art and music allow people a certain freedom.

I hate cars. They are so loud, and ugly, and full of toxic exhaust, like radiohead fans.

I'll regularly just burst out into laughter at funerals, at the expense of the dead. What's the difference between a dead person and Thom Yorke? One is talented and the other is dead. **** you grandma

Trying to find my flaws is like trying to find a black person at one of our concerts

At the KFC there's, lot of black people there innit *laughs*

I'M nOT thOM yorkE but a. ROBOT.

I'd go onstage doing this thing, trying to fill this arena that I can't fill because I don't understand what this is. It's like you're given a job that's beyond you. And it's taken me years to realize what works in those big situations.

Sometimes when you get an opportunity to appropriate your work, or use whatever collateral you have, for something good, you think, "Well, yeah, you should do this." You're not in any way qualified to do it, but I was so sick of hearing so many unqualified people say that global warming doesn't exist, I thought, "Well, I'm no less qualified than they are, so I can deal with doing it."

I love listening to music with my mate. We don't do it often, but when we do we'll just sit there and lose our heads in it. Sooner or later he'll start saying something to the effect of "Hey, Thom, can you put in something else now?" but I'll just nod coldly and respond "not just yet". But after awhile, I'll finally budge. And that's when I crack a big smile and take out The Bends and put in Kid A. My friend just sighs and leaves the room, and I can't blame him. He's not ready for that leap yet.

Cigarrettes make you look cool

I actually saw the loch ness monster when I was 9. She was big as a house. Want to know who the loch ness monster is? It's your obese mother. Burn mother****er

If Radiohead were a fruit we would be apples, because apples are festive

The thing I remember most about America is that it's silly. That can be quite a relief at times.

Occasionally I'll just pull out a rifle and shoot one of my audience members. So far there have been no complaints filed.

Is Thom Yorke there? Oh he is? Well then how the can I be Thom Yorke, talking to you, right here, on the phone.

I'm terrible at jigsaw puzzles. Other people solve the puzzle but I just keep trying to make the pieces that don't fit fit. I guess that's what makes me special, I try to assemble jigsaw puzzles incorrectly.

We toyed with the idea of making it a double album, but I think that would only have confused everybody even more, so we decided to stick with the songs we picked.

I wrote a lot of stuff quickly: pages and pages of notes that seemed pretty incoherent at first. Most of it was taken from the radio because -suddenly being a parent- I'd be confronted by the radio giving a news report every hour of the day.

The difference between me and Bono is that he's quite happy to go and flatter people to get what he wants and he's very good at it, but I just can't do it. I'd probably end up punching them in the face rather than shaking their hand, so it's best that I stay out of their way. I can't engage with that level of bullshit. Which is a shame, really, and in a way it would help if I could, but I just can't. I admire the fact that Bono can, and can walk away from it smelling of roses.

I don't eat food, I Thom Yorke it. What's the difference? When normal people "eat" food, they first chew it with their "teeth" until it's small enough to go through their "esophagus" and then be broken down in their "stomach" and absorbed. When I Thom Yorke food, I chew it with my Thom Yorkes until it's small enough to go through my Yorke tube. It's then broken down in my Thomach, where if I eat too much sweets, I get a mean Thommy ache! But it's okay because Jonny's usually there to rub the pain out.

I recently enrolled at an elementary school and they accepted me. I am finally going to get revenge on those kids that beat me up as a boy, assuming they are still attending.

It's the devil's way now There is no way out You can scream and you can shout It is too late now

Kid A is about an abortion. An abortion of the soul. *Begins to cry, holds up air quotes* Thom Yorke.

The more you try to erase me The more, the more The more that I appear

It will be only a matter of time before the music business establishment completely folds.

Rock music is, is a necessary evil, like beating my children with penny loafers

I'm not taking things quite so seriously as before. Especially myself.

Women's underwear section it's like Narnia's wardrobe for my erotic delights.

I want to live, breathe, I want to be part of the human race

My argument would be that I don't think there is much that's genuinely political art that is good art.

I wanted to live with the ****ing manta rays, but they banned me from Sea World.

2+2=5 wasn't intentional. I thought you carry a 1 every time there are two 2's in an equation. I'm not stupid, the mathematicians is stupid

Are you such a dreamer To put the world to rights? I'll stay home forever Where two and two always makes a five I'll lay down the tracks Sandbag and hide January has April's showers And two and two always makes a five It's the devil's way now There is no way out You can SCREAM and you can shout It is too late now Because ... You have not been Payin' attention! Payin' attention! Payin' attention! Payin' attention! You have not been paying attention!

I think maybe since there isn't a great deal of access to the mainstream media and people don't understand the language of mainstream media, if you put music out there with lyrics that are loosely political, people absorb some of it and spit it back out.

I once got hit with a taser at a concert and everyone thought I was dancing. Now I have to do that dance, at every show for the rest of my life, or admit that a taser can damage the Thom Yorke

It's God's will that millions of people are gonna die this year because of some outmoded economic policies? No, it's not!

I'm not afraid of computers taking over the world.

Ironically my brother died in a car accident shortly after Airbag was recorded. He's not an identical twin so I didn't care.

I'm still not certain on the nature of the spork, whether it is a fork and a spoon, or a fork and a knife mixed together, or maybe a fork and a fork on top. Life is full of mysteries yeah man

The band name came about when the original vocalist died when a huge radio fell on his head. He trotted about for a while dancing with the radio on his head, before he died of asphyxiation and blood loss. *Laughs* it was hilarious

If I could be any famous person, I'd be John Wilkes Booth, because I'd love to shoot Abraham Lincoln in the face

While you make pretty speeches I'm being cut to shreds You feed me to the lions A delicate balance

My songs are my kids. Some of them stay with me, some others I have to send out, out to the war. It might sound stupid and it might even sound naive, but that's just the way it is.

I'm even taller in person, because photographs shrink you down and steal your soul native american.

Jumped in the river, what did I see? Black-eyed angels swam with me A moonful of stars and astral cars And all the figures I used to see All my lovers were there with me All my past and futures And we all went to heaven in a little row boat There was nothing to fear and nothing to doubt

I could blow bubbles. Bubbles would solve any dilemma we face. If bubbles were president there would be no war.

I will never run out of quotes. I am, after all, the Thom Yorke.

And I know I'm paranoid and neurotic, I've made a career out of it.

Being in a band turns you into a child and keeps you there.

I'm actually an athiest. That's kind of deep you must admit.

I think we're entering a very dangerous time. The West has set itself up, decided it's in charge, not for good intentions, not for the benefit of mankind.

If I weren't in Radiohead I'd be working at a grocery store, I'd be that creepy guy who lives in an efficiency apartment and collects salted, cured meats.

I had a dream where my face was a hamburger. What the?