Joe Strummer Quotes

And the pebbles fight each other as rocks/And my father bends among them/Two hands outstretching up to me/Not that I can hear. ~ Joe Strummer

What I like about playing America is you can be pretty sure you're not going to get hit with a full can of beer when you're singing and I really enjoy that! ~ Joe Strummer

The way you get a better world is, you don't put up with substandard anything. ~ Joe Strummer

What's holding me up is I'm confused about the nature of the music. Because the modern music doesn't reach me. I mean to say the sound of the modern electric production. A lot of sequencers ... synths. That's what people are buying. Because that doesn't reach me, it throws me back to like 1948, but I don't want to be there. Back there, I'm talking about blues records ... The roots of rock 'n' roll is rhythm and blues and that's like really where I'm at, where I was always at. ~ Joe Strummer

Don't forget you're alive. 'Cause sometimes when you walk around the city and you're in a bad mood, you can think, hey, wait a minute, we're alive! We don't know what the next second will bring and what a fantastic thing this is. This can get easily forgotten in the routine of life, and that's something I'm trying to bring to my attention at all times. Don't forget you're alive. We're not dead, you know. This is the greatest thing. ~ Joe Strummer

The hippy movement was a failure. All hippies around now just represent complete apathy. There's a million good reasons why the thing failed, OK. But the only thing we've got to live with is that it failed. ~ Joe Strummer

Authority is supposedly grounded in wisdom, but I could see from a very early age that authority was only a system of control and it didn't have any inherent wisdom. I quickly realised that you either became a power or you were crushed ~ Joe Strummer

I never got lessons. I took influence from Chet Baker, Ian Dury, and Joe Strummer. I don't hear my voice and think, 'Yeah, that's a banging voice!' It's more about putting the right emotions into the right words and the lyrics than anything else to me. ~ King Krule

The most profound voice of any musician I have ever heard. Joe (Strummer) took his message to the world, and the world listened. He managed to influence more than one generation with his innovative and determined manner, and I am not alone in repeatedly turning to his thoughts and lyrics when searching for inspiration. The Clash was the greatest rock band. They wrote the rule book for U2. ~ Bono

I began thinking there should be an American phrase book, 'cause I've got an Italian phrase book, and an Arabic one ... now a British one. I think it'd be pretty good to have an American phrase book. ~ Joe Strummer

People can change anything they want to, and that means everything in the world. ~ Joe Strummer

You've gotta be slightly stupid. ~ Joe Strummer

Without people, you're nothing. ~ Joe Strummer

I don't want to look back. I want to keep going forward, I still have something to say to people. ~ Joe Strummer

The toughest thing is facing yourself. Being honest with yourself, that's much tougher than beating someone up. That's what I call tough. ~ Joe Strummer

When you blame yourself, you learn from it. If you blame someone else, you don't learn nothing, cause hey, it's not your fault, it's his fault, over there. ~ Joe Strummer

I don't have any other message than don't forget you are alive ~ Joe Strummer

In fact, punk rock means exemplary manners to your fellow human beings. ~ Joe Strummer

A lot of the time I'm semi-insane, but there is a slight bit of intelligence there. ~ Joe Strummer

I like to just feel how I feel and not worry about it really. ~ Joe Strummer

I want to grow up with my audience. I don't expect to be getting through to the younger pop crowd. I learned that from Paul Simon. ~ Joe Strummer

With The Simpsons you can go back to work with a keen heart. ~ Joe Strummer

I'm proud of all our records. Even the crap ones. ~ Joe Strummer

As the floods of God
Wash away sin city
They say it was written
In the page of the Lord
But I was looking
For that great jazz note
That destroyed
The walls of Jericho
The winds of fear
Whip away the sickness
The messages on the tablet
Was valium
As the planets form
That golden cross Lord
I'll see you on
The holy cross roads
After all this time
To believe in Jesus
After all those drugs
I thought I was Him
After all my lying
And a-crying
And my suffering
I ain't good enough
I ain't clean enough
To be Him
The tribal wars
Burning up the homeland
The fuel of evil
Is raining from the sky
The sea of lava
Flowing down the mountain
The time will sleep
Us sinners by
Holy rollers roll
Give generously now
Pass the hubcap please
Thank you Lord ~ Joe Strummer

Anybody who makes speeches written by someone else is just a robot. ~ Joe Strummer

You ain't alive and kicking unless you're fighting. ~ Joe Strummer

A lot of people... use a calculator! ~ Joe Strummer

I love English rock music the best and have always been fascinated by The Clash, especially Joe Strummer, their singer. ~ Carla Bruni

All hippies around now just represent complete apathy. ~ Joe Strummer

Yeah, all those things, responsibility, pressure. It's a bit stressful. I try and come to terms with it by not thinking about it. ~ Joe Strummer

Anyway, it's good to be sent back to the underground. There's always a good side to bad things and the good side to this is that at least everyone has to go back down. ~ Joe Strummer

There isn't a town in the world I haven't run amok in. ~ Joe Strummer

Nonsmokers should be banned from buying any product a smoker created. ~ Joe Strummer

When I was very little, I was into Michael Jackson. At six or seven, it was Madonna, but she's not what she used to be. I've been into everything from Edith Piaf to Joe Strummer to the Velvet Underground to Suicide to A Tribe Called Quest to African music. ~ Lykke Li

I only saw my father twice a year. If I'd seen him all the time I'd probably have murdered him by now. He was very strict. ~ Joe Strummer

I'm far more dangerous now, because I don't care at all. ~ Joe Strummer

Don't write slogans, write truths. ~ Joe Strummer

But the Clash as a performing band, either live on-stage, or back together in the studio: that can never happen again. It was hard enough to envisage a Clash without Mick Jones in 1983, but it is impossible to envisage one without Joe Strummer now or at any time in the future. Even if the other members of the band do get back together, and they (or Sony) choose to use the name, it won't be the Clash. Joe Strummer is dead, and irreplaceable. That's it, now. From here to eternity. ~ Marcus Gray

When I started, they told me I only needed 3 chords and the truth ... It turned out I could manage with 2 and some vague ideas. ~ Joe Strummer

I like to read because it's the opposite of being on the go. Reading is the perfect antidote. ~ Joe Strummer

For me the music is a vehicle for my lyrics. It's a chance to get some really good words across. ~ Joe Strummer

Greed, it ain't going anywhere. They should have that in a big billboard across Times Square. Without people you're nothing ~ Joe Strummer

All the power's in the hands of people rich enough to buy it. ~ Joe Strummer

When you're out to get the honey you don't go killing all the bees ~ Joe Strummer

I think we're going to have to forget about the radio and just go back to word of mouth. ~ Joe Strummer

The only place I considered home was the boarding school, in Yorkshire, my parents sent me to. ~ Joe Strummer

And so now I'd like to say - people can change anything they want to. And that means everything in the world. People are running about following their little tracks - I am one of them. But we've all got to stop just following our own little mouse trail. People can do anything - this is something that I'm beginning to learn. People are out there doing bad things to each other. That's because they've been dehumanised. It's time to take the humanity back into the center of the ring and follow that for a time. Greed, it ain't going anywhere. They should have that in a big billboard across Times Square. Without people you're nothing. That's my spiel. ~ Joe Strummer

There is a time to dance to techno and a time not to. ~ Joe Strummer

Son, in this life, you don't ever walk by a red dress. ~ Joe Posnanski

I couldn't go to school with whites. Now there are schools that educate everyone. ~ Joe Frazier

To me, it doesn't feel like it's just another rock record that somebody put out. It feels like we taped into the culture a little bit ~ Billie Joe Armstrong

Most people want their representatives to get something done. ~ Joe Lieberman

Isaiah told him what he'd found on the Ruby's Real Beauty website. Ruby's stocked the largest, most complete inventory of human hair extensions in the South Bay area. The most highly prized were Virgin Remy. "Virgin because the girl still had her cherry?" Dodson said. "No. Virgin because the hair wasn't chemically treated," Isaiah said. "What's Remy mean?" "It means the hair was carefully cut so the cuticles and roots stayed in the same direction. Otherwise, they mow it down like weeds and throw it in a bin." Isaiah ~ Joe Ide

I think that Joe Biden is qualified in many respects. But I do point out that he's been wrong on many foreign policy and national security issues, which is supposed to be his strength. ~ John McCain

The sun, like a boil on the bright blue ass of day, rolled gradually forward and spread its legs wide to reveal the pubic thatch of night, a hairy darkness in which stars crawled like lice, and the moon crabbed slowly upward like an albino dog tick striving for the anal gulch. ~ Joe R. Lansdale

Sometimes the smartest decision is the last one you want to make. ~ Joe Hart

Ecstasy? Like the drug?" Michelle asked. "Wow. Trippy. They were into that back then?" "No. Not like the drug. Like fun. She's a symbol of never-ending fun. ~ Joe Hill

Sometimes, we try to stifle that fact or hide it, ... But the profound, and ultimately most important, reality is that we are not only citizens of this blessed country, we are citizens of the same awesome God. ~ Joe Lieberman

Listen, I'm going to give you some advice, not because I
think you need it, but because I feel like I've earned it. The right, I mean. To give advice. Here it is:
don't hold onto things. It's a problem the men in my family have. It's taken me a long time to figure
this out. Me, my father, my grandfather, we collect things. We collect miseries. It's what we do. But
sometimes the best thing to do is to just let things go. To let them pass. ~ Joe Meno

Punk will never be dead to me. It's my life. I can never just drop this lifestyle. It embodies me. ~ Billie Joe Armstrong

There's been this argument about Coldplay stealing this melody from Joe Satriani, but, if you listen to it, it's mine! It's the 'Foreigner Suite,' it is! ~ Cat Stevens

Yes, I have a website that puts out conservative news. Yes, I am part owner of a gun company. Yes, I'm a Republican who was cast into the limelight for having the temerity to confront Barack Obama on the question of redistributing wealth ... But I'm a working man, and I'm working. ~ Joe Wurzelbacher

History will tell if we were really a good band or just a one day fly. ~ Billie Joe Armstrong

My thing was play as hard as you can, don't be stupid, pay attention to details, and have enough guts in the clutch that you're not afraid to make a play. Some things I thought were important for a young man to know. ~ Joe Paterno

I don't make promises, I promise results. ~ Joe Royle

Not a mark on it. (Joe)
Yeah. Wanna check the backseat, where Steele is sitting? I'll bet there's a big stain there. (Tee) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

I need to fix my makeup.I realized she probably just wanted a chance to compose herself. Maybe she just wanted to slip away completely. After what just happened, I couldn't blame her. Hell, maybe I'd get lucky and we could end this whole thing now. ~ Joe Schreiber

Ronald Reagan knew who he was. Barack Obama is still working through that equation politically. ~ Joe Scarborough

You can't play hockey with a bald spot, so I'm hanging up the skates. ~ Joe Sakic

Today was opening day for the new Congress in Washington. And Vice President Joe Biden swore in the new batch of White House fence jumpers. ~ David Letterman

I've certainly had to bite my tongue on occasion and live to fight another day, so to speak, on certain things. But when you're new and fresh, you come out and think, 'I don't want to screw my chance up, so I'll go along with what everybody else does.' ~ Joe Nichols

I'm beyond the normal person. I'm not your everyday Joe. ~ Carl Paladino

Well, boys, it's a round ball and a round bat and you got to hit the ball square. ~ Joe Schultz

We have this distinctly human concept of good and bad. Nature doesn't have that. It just is. I'm not comfortable with that. I'm not accepting of the fact that we live in a profoundly brutal world. I don't fully approve of the way nature works. This lifetime of study has left me disappointed by the brutality of it all.
It has also made me more sympathetic to the human condition and the many unbearable circumstances we find ourselves in. You and I are lucky in this part of the world not to experience the sort of wretched life that is a reality for so many. ~ Joe Hutto

I was performing skin grafts and became interested in why skin wouldn't graft permanently. ~ Joe Murray

A cigarette in the hands of a Hollywood star onscreen is a gun aimed at a 12- or 14-year-old. ~ Joe Eszterhas

All actors bring something unexpected to the role because they have to translate what's on the page and make a real character out of the black-and-white text that's there in the script. ~ Joe Johnston

Hoping to soothe her, Joe said, "Whatever it is I'll get it. Just tell me."
"Tampons."
Joe stalled. Tampons. But she was only ... well, fourteen. He had no idea when young ladies needed such things. He said, "Uh ... '
"I know," she all but wailed. "I'm sorry. But there aren't any here, and you're already there."
"Yeah, of course." He glanced at Austin. "No problem at all, hon." He swallowed. "Any particular kind?"
...
Hell, he could kick ass on felons, play bodyguard and bounty hunter, so surely he could buy a stupid box of tampons. ~ Lori Foster

You keep your wine in a paper bag, you shouldn't be too upset when it leaks. ~ Joe Abercrombie

To really appreciate life you got to know you're going to die. ~ Joe Rogan

Your characters get angry at you if you speak about them and stop you from giving birth to them on the page in revenge. Real writers sit down and write. Wannabe writers sit around and talk. ~ Joe Eszterhas

He groaned. "Don't talk about my dad while I'm trying to seduce you." "Stop talking," I begged him. "Please." And then, of course, Carter and Kelly appeared, on their run. They stopped and stared at us. We stared back. I felt guilty. Because their underage brother was shirtless and it probably smelled like a whorehouse where we stood. Kelly said, "This is awkward." I said, "Nothing happened!" Carter said, "Oh my god, it stinks like sex." Joe ~ T.J. Klune

It'll always bother you, wondering what you missed out on," Merrin said now. "That's how men are. I'm just being practical. I'm not waiting to get married to you so I can fight through your midlife affair with our babysitter. I'm not going to be the reason for your regrets. ~ Joe Hill

As an author on a corporate press, you have a lot less control over the finished product. I figure if I spend a couple years writing something, I want to be able to decide what the cover looks like and how it's going to be presented. ~ Joe Meno

The whole world can burn down around us. I'll keep my arms around you until the end. ~ Joe Hill

I was one of the first people to join Facebook in February of 2004, and launched one of the inaugural applications on the platform in May 2007. ~ Joe Green

Whatever you goin' through, could always be much worse,
Don't make a mistake, mistakin' your blessings for a curse. ~ Joe Budden

Yesterday, the White House confirmed that President Obama will meet with Pope Francis during his visit in September. Some experts are wondering if they'll discuss their disagreement over contraception. Then Joe Biden said, 'I didn't even know they were dating.' ~ Jimmy Fallon

Say, you told me you thought Les Miserables was the greatest novel ever written. I think Vanity Fair is the greatest. Let's fight. - Joe Willard ~ Maud Hart Lovelace

Good actors are a dime a dozen, but I want actors that are gonna be part of my team and collaborative. ~ Joe Pantoliano

Just because something has always been done a certain way does not necessarily mean it's the best way, or the correct way, or the healthiest way for your horse, or your relationship with your horse, or your life. ~ Joe Camp