The Who Quotes

I hope I die before I get old ~ The Who

I don't know the what, when, where or why about my life, but as I stroke her hair on the way home, I suddenly know the who. ~ Aly Martinez

So remember when you're looking for trouble
That trouble is already busy with weaker men ~ Pete Townshend

He took the Who's feast, he took the Who pudding, he took the roast beast. He cleaned out that ice box as quick as a flash. Why, the Grinch even took their last can of Who hash. ~ Dr. Seuss

Playing with the Who is the biggest rush there is. At eleven years old I used to go to bed dreaming about what I'm doing now. I don't know how many people can say that. ~ Zak Starkey

Inherent in every living thing is an insatiable hunger, the innate desire to express life by freely and fully being "what" it was uniquely created to be. To personalize this, consider the possibility that there was a time when you were a "what" before you were a "who." If you can wrap your mind around that possibility, then, the question to explore is, what were you before you became a who - and why did you become the who you uniquely are when there are so many other "who"s on the planet you might have been? While this may seem like a bit of a paradoxi- cal tongue twister, it is the quintessential question that requires exploration if you are to follow your true North Star back to your point of origin, where you'll find your authentic self waiting to weave itself into the fabric of your human life today and every day. ~ Dennis Merritt Jones

If a man has tortured and killed your father, your mother, your sweetheart, in short, one of those beings who leave an eternal emptiness and a perpetually bleeding wound when they are torn from your heart, do you think society has given you sufficient reparation because the blade of the guillotine has passed between the murderer's trapezius and his occipital bone, because the who made you undergo long years of mental and emotional suffering has undergone a few seconds of physical pain? ~ Alexandre Dumas

By mobilizing relational ministry from how, by stopping only at Langmead's first aspect of incarnational mission (Jesus as a pattern for mission), the who of personal encounter, of participation in the continued presence of Jesus, is squeezed out into a utilitarian pattern (Jesus did it this way so we should too) that can be duplicated but lacks the indwelling power and direction of God. ~ Andrew Root

That is why success and fruitfulness depend as much upon focusing on the "who" you are as much as the "what" of the work you do. Invest in your character, and it will give you the returns that you are looking for by only investing in the work itself. You can't do the latter without the former. ~ Henry Cloud

The goal of socialism is a fairer allocation of economic resources, which its advocates often claim will also be a less wasteful one. Socialism is about who gets the goods and how. Socialism objects to markets because markets allocate resources in ways socialists believe to be unfair on both counts: both the who and the how. ~ Virginia Postrel

But what was interesting about what the Who did is that we took things which were happening in the pop genre and represent them to people so that they see them in a new way. I think the best example is Andy Warhol's work, the image of Marilyn Monroe or the Campbell's soup can. ~ Pete Townshend

It never is the who, is it? It's always the why. -Elphaba ~ Gregory Maguire

I would love to play the drums with 'The Who.' ~ Tom Curren

In the face of staggering questions and assaults against your faith and even God's character, are you content with the Who of your life as opposed to the often empty nature of the why? ~ Ken Dignan

What the - who the - what the fucking fuck? ~ L.A. Gilbert

The errors could have been avoided by mentally moving the who or whom back into the gap and sounding out the sentence (or, if your intuitions about who and whom are squishy, inserting he or him in the gap instead). ~ Steven Pinker

She felt the State of Rock was symbolised by the stadium-type concerts given earlier that summer by the likes of the Who the Stones and Elton John, causing her to opine, 'The time is right for an aggressive infusion of life blood.' She also claimed the new London punk scene had not been inspired by the New York new wave, but was instead developing parallel to it. ~ Marcus Gray

I grew up on oldies like the Beatles and the Beach Boys, Led Zeppelin and The Who. ~ Drake Bell

Maintain social distancing and wash your hands frequently with soap and water, until the WHO lifts the global emergency. And above all, do not share conspiracy theories on social media, because every single share makes it difficult for health-workers and other people working at the front to contain the situation. ~ Abhijit Naskar

The who with the what now?"The dragon cocked its head to one side and gave this utterance careful consideration. "I'm afraid that I don't quite follow you, young warlock," it admitted, sounding rather testy."Your young
language does change so swiftly."
"Sorry! I just meant – I meant: 'bloody hell'! ~ FayJay

The flu-casters would draw out the maps and keep people engaged at regular intervals ... beaming it from the WHO bunker. ~ David Nabarro

I think the first three Rickenbacker basses were imported around 1964. Pete Quaife, the bassist for The Kinks, bought one. Then John Entwistle from The Who bought one. As for the third one, I asked the manager of the store if I could get an employee discount. He said I could, and so I picked up that one. ~ Chris Squire

The one who consistently earns serendipity is the who cares little for convenience. ~ Glenn Llopis

By writing a horror novel where this inexplicable disorder takes over in our ordered lives, you make order look better by comparison. But below that, there's a part of us that responds to the Who bashing their instruments to pieces on the stage. There's a very primitive part that says, "Do it some more." ~ Stephen King

Well, obviously I wanted it to sound as original as possible. I suppose the influences that we had were probably from the actual power point of view we wanted to be like the Who. Vocally we wanted to be like the Beach Boys, whatever was good at the time. ~ Roy Wood

I mean, you want the truth as you wanna hear it? I can't do that. You couldn't afford me. ~ Keith Moon

Nora remembered drawing in the sand of her future with a stick. What she couldn't recall was when the sand had become cement, the who-I-want-to-be turned for once and for all into who-I-am. ~ Anna Quindlen

The Who is now a brand, not a band; but it is a brand that is upheld by its audience, not an industry or a cynical moneymaking machine. ~ Pete Townshend

I grasped the who, and that was enough when I didn't understand the why. What I have learned along the way, and what Job learned too, is that it is better to know God than to know the answers! ~ Kasey Van Norman

We sit down with a copy of Rolling Stone from the early eighties to argue about whether Face Dances by the Who (John's choice) or Emotional Rescue from the Stones (my choice) was the lamest sellout album for a super group. ~ Kirstin Cronn-Mills

Oh, come on. I have to know about the who-do voodoo that you do. (Nick) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

I tip my hat to the new constitution, I take a bow for the new revolution, smile and grin at the change all around me. ~ The Who

You see people who are 19 or 20 years old and they don't even know who The Who is. It's like, where have you been? Justin Timberlake? C'mon. Where are the roots? ~ Dustin Diamond

There's a lot of bands that get to a certain level, and it just stops. They scrap it. Compare this to, say, The Rolling Stones or The Who, where they just continued on forever and are still playing, or they quit after 20 years. ~ Eddie Vedder

You have to believe in the arthouse, if you will - the emotion, the conflict, the who am I, which will always be an unanswered question. If you do it right, you have a smaller drama, and a great movie. ~ Avi Arad

I was obsessed with The Who. I would have accepted a marriage proposal from Roger Daltrey on the spot. I went to all of their shows in San Francisco and some in L.A. That was as close as I got to being a groupie. ~ Jennifer Egan

As a kid, I was obsessed with the Who. They were the most important band to me. Songs like "I'm One" helped me get through high school. ~ Judd Apatow

She didn't understand how it worked. She didn't understand why people starved to death and children ended up in orphanages while barren women longed for babies. She didn't understand why a cigarette break could save one person's life while driving home to get your daughter's hair bow could snatch another's. She would never understand why those people. Why that train. Why her.
But maybe she'd been asking the wrong question.
Maybe comfort wasn't found in the why.
Maybe comfort was to be found in the who.
A God who wept. ~ Katie Ganshert

Madness is the WHO staring into the abyss and denying it is there. Madness is an ostrich who sticks her head in the sand while a pack of hyenas closes around her. - Lanky Man with green eyes ~ Dan Brown

As a kid, I wasn't listening to The Who; I was listening to Frankie Knuckles. ~ Nick Frost

If you know the why, you can figure out the who. ~ James Patterson

So everyone knows they get to see Dr. Demon Slayer on a regular basis."
Megan almost choked on her steak. "The who?"
"The demon slayer. That's what the station specified we were to call you. ~ Stacia Kane

When The Who first started, we were playing blues, and I dug the blues and I knew what I was supposed to be playing, but I couldn't play it. I couldn't get it out. I knew what I had to play; it was in my head. I could hear the notes in my head, but I couldn't get them out on the guitar. ~ Pete Townshend

Claybourne grabbed his arm, stopping his forward movement. "Do we have a plan?"
"Get Emma out alive and I don't care who the hell dies in the bloody process." Breaking free of the hold, Swindler began running toward the gate.
"I do hope he's not including us in the 'who the hell dies' arena," he heard Greystone mutter.
"I wouldn't be so sure if I were you," Dodger responded. "I do believe the man's in love. ~ Lorraine Heath

The WHO is the lead agency in health in the United Nations system, and clearly we have very important functions to play. ~ Margaret Chan

Yes, it leads people to believe that they have more information than our cops, but then, at some point, before you know it, you're both caught up. Everybody, when they're watching the who-dun-it shows, is making guesses in the first five minutes anyway. We just kind of give them what they want. ~ Kristin Lehman

'The Who' created the Daltrey/Townshend Center at UCLA for teenage hospital patients with cancer. It's the only one of its kind. ~ Nolan Sotillo

It can be hidden only in complete silence and perfect passivity, but its disclosure can almost never be achieved as a willful purpose, as though one possessed and could dispose of this "who" in the same manner he has and can dispose of his qualities. On the contrary, it is more than likely that the "who," which appears so clearly and unmistakably to others, remains hidden from the person himself, like the daimon in Greek religion which accompanies each man throughout his life, always looking over his shoulder from behind and thus visible only to those he encounters. This revelatory quality of speech and action comes to the fore where people are with others and neither for (the doer of good works) nor against them (the criminal) that is, in sheer human togetherness. Although nobody knows whom he reveals when he discloses himself in deed or word, he must be willing to risk the disclosure. ~ Hannah Arendt

I think the greatest records we've ever heard, from Zeppelin to Purple to Sabbath to The Who, were all recorded in the studio live. ~ Glenn Hughes

The shittrain began on November 22nd, 1963, in Dallas - when some twisted little geek blew the President's off... and then a year later, LBJ was re-elected as the "Peace Candidate."

Johnson did a lot of rotten things in those five bloody years, but when the history books are written he will emerge in his proper role as the man who caused an entire generation of Americans to lose all respect for the Presidency, the White House, the Army, and in fact the who structure of "government. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

I've always hated the "Who are you?" question. This is a philosophical inquiry. Answering that question is why we're on earth. You can't answer it in thirty seconds or in an elevator. ~ Sandy Nathan

What the Who is all about is exactly that and it always has been. If it exists today for this concert, it's in response again to a function which is happening out there on the street. ~ Pete Townshend

The British rockers saved me. They brought me to a different generation altogether [in the 60th]. The Who and The Yardbirds and Georgie Fame and Van Morrison and all those people. The only person who ever did my songs in [ U.S] country was Bonnie Raitt. ~ Mose Allison

In the interview, Roger reflected how the German philosopher Nietzsche said a man can undergo torture if he knows the why of his life. But I, here at Dachau, learned something far greater. I learned to know the Who of my life. He was enough to sustain me then, and is enough to sustain me still ~ Ken Dignan

The "magic if" is a tool invented by Stanislavski, the father of acting craft, is to help an actor make appropriate choices. Essentially, the "magic if" refers to the answer to the question, "What would I do if I were this character in this situation?" Note that the question is not "What would I do if I were in this situation?" What you would do may be very different from what the character would do. Your job, based on your analysis of the script, the scene, and the given circumstances regarding the who of your character, is to decide what he or she would do. ~ Bruce Miller

People define themselves to some degree by the music that they listened to as teens. My mom had Elvis. Me, I had 'The Who' and later punk rock. Kids who came up in the '80s had other songs and bands. It's a way of placing ourselves culturally and temporally. ~ Jennifer Egan

And every mile we go further from London makes the notion of ransom even more unlikely. So we're still no closer to learning what's behind this-neither the who for the why of it." She waited until he swung around again and caught his eye. "I believe we need to consider the wider implications."
His lips twitched-she was almost certain of it-but he didn't stop pacing. "Meanwhile you want to continue on with this"-he gestured-"quest of yours."
She tipped up her head. "Of course. I'm here, already kidnapped, but they've provided me with a maid and are under strict orders to see to my health and safety, orders they're clearly committed to obeying. On top of that"-she waved at him-"you're here. If you continue to follow our party, when it comes to the point where escaping becomes necessary, I'll be able to do so and hide behind you. God knows, you're large enough."
He quirked a black brow. ~ Stephanie Laurens

I think that DDT holds a lot of promise. It hasn't been banned everywhere - obviously it has in the U.S. In fact, about 10 years ago, the WHO came out with a statement promoting it for public health interventions in many countries. It's cheap. It's very, very effective. We've never had an insecticide that has worked so well since. It's also safe. A lot of people don't realize that its toxicity profile for humans is low. ~ Laura Harrington

Mattie once asked me ... she'd just come home flush from a crush on Jonah Sweeten and asked me how you know when you like someone, and if I liked any boys like she did, and I didn't know what tot tell her. That I tried not to think about that kind of stuff, because it was painful, because I thought I could ever have it, but when I did end up liking someone, it always made me ache right down to my core. I realized pretty early on that the who didn't really matter so much. That anybody who listens to me, I end up loving them just a little. ~ Courtney Summers

This being the final say, tomorrow is thought about.
The what of tomorrow, the who? The maybe, the if.
Should it never come, none, no one but those left would know, know it so. ~ Rosca Marx

The Who, England's most self-conscious band, have released 'Quadrophenia,' which in turn freezes in time our image of the mid-Sixties Mod sensibility. ~ Jon Landau

At least Harry Potter knew the who fuck he was dealing with. ~ Richard P. Denney

When I was 13, when I was 14, when I was in England, yeah all I wanted to do was go and see The Who, go and see The Stones. ~ Hans Zimmer

Once you start deliberately offering thought, then you can never offer enough action to keep up with the thought. Once you access the Energy that creates worlds, a huge vortex comes into place, and there's just not enough action for you to keep up with that. And so, what you have to do is visualize every step of the way, envision you happy in the process. Envision things in place, envision people catching on. Just envision it working. Skip over the how and the where and the when and the who - and just stay focused upon the what and the why. Abraham ~ Esther Hicks

Group norms, the researchers on Project Aristotle concluded, were the answer to improving Google's teams. "The data finally started making sense," said Dubey. "We had to manage the how of teams, not the who. ~ Charles Duhigg

I thought if I lost the band, I was dead. If I didn't stick with the Who, I would be a sheet metal worker for the rest of my life. ~ Roger Daltrey

Someone was waving a large pink-and-white sign that read, "Don't Worry, Be Happy." I was trying, and so were at least thirty thousand other bodies, with varying degrees of post-Aquarian patience, to see the Who for the first time in a year. ~ Ellen Willis

As winter went on, longer than long, we both freaked out. My mania grew to insane proportions. I sat in the study room at night, wildly typing out Dali-esque short stories. I sat at my desk in our room, drinking tea, flying on speed. She'd bang into the room in a fury. Or, she'd bang into the room, laughing like a maniac. Or, she'd bang into the room and sit under the desk eating Nutter-Butters. She was a sugar freak. She'd pour packets of sugar down her throat, or long Pixie-Stix. She was in constant motion. At first I wondered if she too had some food issues, subsisting mostly on sugar and peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches on Wonder Bread, but my concern (as she pointed out) was "total transference, seriously, Max. Maybe you're just hungry." Some Saturdays, we'd go to town together, buy bags and bags of candies, Tootsie Rolls (we both liked vanilla best; she always smelled delicious and wore straight vanilla extract as perfume, which made me hungry), and gummy worms and face- twisting sour things and butterscotch. We'd lie on our backs on the beds, listening to The Who and Queen, bellowing, "I AM THE CHAMPION, YES I AM THE CHAMPION" through mouths full of sticky stuff, or we'd swing from the pipes over the bed and fall shrieking to the floor. ~ Marya Hornbacher

Who we are to be is more important than what we are to do. It is the who that determines the what. If you can figure that one out, you will have come a long way to becoming a focused and content person. ~ Gregory Tyree

But my dreams, they aren't as empty, as my conscience seems to be ~ The Who

I think U.N. organizations are important organizations. They exist for good reasons. And we also admit that there is room for us to improve the way we do business. The WHO will be a very positive and proactive partner in the overall U.N. reform, which is also important. ~ Margaret Chan

I think we are incumbent, I am incumbent, the Who is incumbent, anybody that produces anything by me is incumbent by my Englishness. ~ Pete Townshend

I don't mind doing the Who tours when they come along but I want to get out there and play. ~ John Entwistle

I was thrilled to support the Teenage Cancer Trust while celebrating the music of The Who - a band that changed my life. ~ Geddy Lee

I don't need a Rolls Royce, I don't need a house in the country, I don't want to have to live in France. I don't have any rock and roll heroes; they're all useless. The Stones and The Who don't mean anything anymore; they're established. The Stones are more of a business than a band ~ John Lydon

Because I love narrative but am more lyrically inclined, I've learned that if I freight titles with narrative information (the who, what, when, where, why of the poem), I can get to my main interest, which is the language, and where it wants to take me. If I can establish the poem's occasion in the title, then so much the better for my freedom to associate. ~ Anna Journey

I think when I was a kid, and I was in England and it was all about The Stones, The Who, The Kinks and The Beatles and that's what my dad was into. ~ Slash

The word is dissociate. There is no 'a' before the 'ss'. People invariably say dis-a-ssociate, which, if you're suffering Disso-ciative Identity Disorder/Multiple Personality Disorder, can be irritating. People then want to know how many personalities I have and the answer is: I don't know. The first book about Multiple Personality Disorder to make an impact was Flora Rheta Schreiber's Sybil, published in 1973, which carries the subtitle: The True and Extraordinary Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Separate Personalities. Corbett H. Thigpen and Hervey M. Cleckley published the controversial The Three Faces of Eve much earlier in 1957, and Pete Townshend from The Who wrote the song 'Four Faces'. People seem to feel safe with numbers.
The truth is more complicated. The kids emerged over time. Billy, the boisterous five-year-old, was at first the most dominant. But he slowly stood aside for JJ, the self-confident ten-year-old who appears when Alice is under stress and handles complicated situations like travelling on the Underground and meeting new people. The first entity to visit was the external voice of the Professor. But he had a choir of accomplices without names. So, how many actual alter personalities are there? I would say more than fifteen and less than thirty, a combination of protectors, persecutors and friends - my own family tree. ~ Alice Jamieson

The Who got paid 4000 pounds during those days, but we always smashed our equipment that cost more than 5000 pounds. ~ Pete Townshend

Twenty-two million cases of hepatitis B are spread every year because of the reuse of syringes. The WHO says one in two injections given is unsafe. ~ Marc Koska

We're not ignored by The Guinness Book Of Records, but we've been largely ignored by the media during our lifetime. If you read any article, no mention is ever made of Pink Floyd. We're never included in the same sentences as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Who. I wrote 'The Wall' as an attack on stadium rock - and there's Pink Floyd making money out of it by playing it in stadiums! Pathetic. They spoiled my creations. ~ Roger Waters

The "who" question does not seek answers from God as much as it seeks God himself. The one who asks who seeks to grow in deeper understanding of who God is and who we are, because when we're suffering, what we need more than answers - even helpful, biblical ones - is God and an assurance of our identity in Christ. ~ Mark Driscoll

Keith Moon had no off-switch and there was no way of controlling him. ~ Karl Wiggins

Fox Creek Road. Such a simple, unassuming name for this place where destiny's going to go down. Now I know the where. And the who, and the what. All I have to figure out is the when. And the why. ~ Cynthia Hand

C'mon, I mean who didn't listen to 'The Who' in the 60s? ~ Patti Smith

I'm always fascinated by the 'who would you like to work with' question. I've never really had an answer; it only really comes as you work with them. ~ Andrew Buchan