Explore the most impactful and insightful quotes and sayings by John Lydon, and enrich your perspective with the wisdom. Share these inspiring John Lydon quotes pictures with your friends on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, or your personal blogs, completely free. Here are the top 206 John Lydon quotes for you to read and share.
You can always wake up on the wrong side of the bed and, boo-hiss, everyone suffers. We can all be temperamental. -- John Lydon
For me, the best rock is not what you play - it's what you're not playing. -- John Lydon
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. -- John Lydon
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. -- John Lydon
I don't believe in anarchy, because it will ultimately amount to the power of the bully, with weapons. Gandhi is my life's inspiration: passive resistance. I don't want to live in the Thunderdome with Mad Max. -- John Lydon
I love consumerism, TV culture, shopping malls. There's nothing I'd ever buy, but I like being there. It's wacky. -- John Lydon
'Lollipop Opera' is the backdrop to Finsbury Park. A place that is very thriving, interracial and lot of music stores, Greek, Turkish, all sorts of immigrant music. It's utter Englishness. It blends the Jamaicans, the Irish. It's like what Jim Reeves did with American country music. -- John Lydon
I never take any commitment lightly, and I certainly don't take my wife lightly. I never did and I never will. That's permanent. That's true love. -- John Lydon
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. -- John Lydon
I cannot comprehend fundamentalism. It's fundamentally wrong. -- John Lydon
When I write, my brain moves faster than my hands so I'm always trying to picture things. -- John Lydon
You need the past as a guideline. The history of music is a good basis, but to escape that stuff, that tortuous rulebook, you have to learn it first. It's kind of like religion - once you've written the Bible, that's it, move on. -- John Lydon
When you talk like an asshole and look like an asshole, you're an asshole -- John Lydon
The idea of hearing, 'Great gig, man,' one more time just turns my stomach over. -- John Lydon
I mean, the genuine roots of culture is folk music. -- John Lydon
Over the years, during television interviews, whenever the host or the reviewer or whoever gets cynical and nasty with me, I will behave accordingly. I will defend myself. -- John Lydon
Do what I want, be honest to myself and then it would do good for others, that's all, full on. -- John Lydon
My biggest fear is mindlessly and stupidly repeating myself. -- John Lydon
I always knew the Sixties wasn't a revolution. It really was just a bunch of university students with wealthy parents having fun. -- John Lydon
Love 'em. Kool & the Gang, love 'em. What more can I say? -- John Lydon
I'd love to have been born into a wealthy family. I might have turned out even more marvellous than I am now ... -- John Lydon
If you ever want to know why I'm not on a record label, look at 'The X Factor!' Honestly, of all the people that strive to break barriers in music and do good things and write great lyrics, not one of them would ever pass the first round on any of these competitions. -- John Lydon
I'm aware of my songs. I'm aware of them because they're about true emotions, true feelings, things that matter. -- John Lydon
I had an Irish Catholic education. Horrible nuns, vindictive and cruel. -- John Lydon
It's a repressive society where you can't be horrible, I'm not horrible, they made me horrible, I'm just honest. -- John Lydon
I don't believe in pets. I like animals to be wild and free. -- John Lydon
I think I have something valid to say. My words are my bullets. I like to brag that somehow I got it right. -- John Lydon
I was a very sickly boy when I was young; nearly died when I was 7. I had a life-threatening attack of meningitis, and that put me in a coma for a few months. It took me four years to get my memory back. -- John Lydon
Love is what you feel for a dog or a pussycat. It doesn't apply to humans. -- John Lydon
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. -- John Lydon
Some visualize the Pistols era in shades of black and white. It wasn't. Actually, the colors I envision are neon or army dirt green with fluorescent pink
anything that would annoy. -- John Lydon
I'm no one's lap dog, you can't put me on a leash. -- John Lydon
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. -- John Lydon
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. I don't have hatred for different forms of music, in fact I've got a great deal of love and openness to everything done by anybody. Christ, I have to: I've got two Alvin Stardust albums. -- John Lydon
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! -- John Lydon
I'm not this callous clown walking around laughing at life all the time. I've had some serious, serious problems in my life. But I've come out with a smile. -- John Lydon
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! -- John Lydon
These were early days for me in the American culture, and so I wasn't aware that when people are showing you guns, they're not threatening you, it's like they're showing you their art collection. For me, at that point, what he was presenting to me was very challenging. -- John Lydon
There's nothing glorious in dying. Anyone can do it. -- John Lydon
I could take on England, but I couldn't take on one heroin user. -- John Lydon
U2 - that's a band that never should have existed. There's no life experience in any of their songs. -- John Lydon
I hate death; it takes people away from you. You're left feeling rudderless. -- John Lydon
I don't tolerate liars. When somebody lies to me, that's really, like, just unbearable. -- John Lydon
I like lime-flavoured yoghurt. The end. There is no religion. It's a man-made fabrication. Once you understand that, you'll be a happier individual. Atheism is as pointless as satanism. -- John Lydon
If you can sort out why you feel the way you do then you might be in better shape to meet your maker. -- John Lydon
There are some Rolling Stones songs that are just stunners. -- John Lydon
I've always said, I thought the Sex Pistols was more Music Hall than anything else - because I think that really, more truths are said in humour than any other form. -- John Lydon
We're Sex Pistols, we ain't fake. -- John Lydon
I love being alive so much. When you come out of comas in your childhood, every moment awake is a joyous occasion. -- John Lydon
A record company used to be a very good thing, but they ended up soul-destroyingly trapping people in the accounting department. And you couldn't get any further, and the heads of each department were changing all the time, so you couldn't have any permanent relationship within the corporation. -- John Lydon
You'd have to be daft as a brush to say you didn't like Pink Floyd. -- John Lydon
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. -- John Lydon
I'm very open about my politics. I don't believe in any political party at all, none of them. -- John Lydon
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. -- John Lydon
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. -- John Lydon
I love America. I love Americans. -- John Lydon
My entire life, socially, was all around the Maggie era. That was the great challenge as a Sex Pistol was how to deal with Margaret Thatcher. I think we did rather good. -- John Lydon
The so-called alleged 'art' of the video - well, the video has killed the radio star, but the video star killed the live musician, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. -- John Lydon
I always find the mirror in the dressing room is where the best artists are. -- John Lydon
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. -- John Lydon
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. -- John Lydon
Let's face it, I ain't ever gonna be the best singer in the world, or the best anything. -- John Lydon
Periods of inactivity, I don't know such things. I'm consistently writing. My life is busy. It always is. There are hardly any moments for self-indulgent laziness. -- John Lydon
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. -- John Lydon
I like America's diversity and its landscapes. -- John Lydon
I've helped launch 49 careers - those that have been in PiL. To me, they are my babies; whatever they get up to, they know I love them. They've been living in my pockets, and they should show more gratitude. -- John Lydon
If dolphins are so intelligent, how come they ain't got Walkmans? -- John Lydon
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. -- John Lydon
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. -- John Lydon
Any kind of history you read is basically the winning side telling you the others were bad. -- John Lydon
Meat isn't murder, it's delicious. -- John Lydon
I nearly die of fear before I go on stage. Something wicked. I can't eat a thing the day before a gig. -- John Lydon
I've never said I'm a communist. -- John Lydon
These days young kids don't have any place to form an epic adventure. It's more often in front of the TV screen or a laptop. That's very hard on them. They're being taught daily unsocial skills. Facebook is an unsocial skill. It's so sad. -- John Lydon
I love books, and all the best ones are people analysing their own emotions. You can learn from that. -- John Lydon
I have values. But morals are Christian. There's no religion here. Values. Don't hurt when you don't need to, but don't let anybody step over that line - it's an invisible line, but it's respect for somebody's space. -- John Lydon
It's nice to be irritated. It's a very joyous thing. -- John Lydon
People think I hate the Royal Family, but that's not true. -- John Lydon
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. -- John Lydon
I think national pride leads to nothing but wars and hate. -- John Lydon
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. -- John Lydon
I find Lady Gaga hilarious. And I kind of like her. My heart's warmed to her. -- John Lydon
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. -- John Lydon
The day I run out of ideas is the day I stop making records. -- John Lydon
You never know how things will work out. After all the bad reasons in the world, some good came out. -- John Lydon
Being born into the Royal Family is like being born into a mental asylum. Marrying into it is not something to be taken lightly. -- John Lydon
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. -- John Lydon
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. -- John Lydon
Obama's dense as a doorbell; not much going on up there - it's a wooden top. -- John Lydon
I don't like the monikers, and I don't like being pigeonholed. You know, I'm a human being. -- John Lydon
I do use my music to entertain myself, as indeed I use other people's music. -- John Lydon
Every single lyric I've ever written I meant. -- John Lydon
I have one major problem with the Internet: It's full of liars. -- John Lydon
We need wealthy dogs off the seats of power. They're taking us back to feudalism and I really don't want that. But I'm very far from being a socialist. -- John Lydon
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. -- John Lydon
The record companies fell apart - quite deservedly. Their corrupting, all-binding contract nonsense had to stop. -- John Lydon
Punk was never about one particular clean-cut imagery ... it's about many, many individuals coming very loosely together. -- John Lydon
For a gun-toting nation, Americans are surprisingly passive. -- John Lydon
Disco sucks? You never heard that from me. -- John Lydon
I'm not going to pontificate and tell you to execute your government at dawn, but it wouldn't be a bad idea. -- John Lydon
Michael Jackson plays the wounded puppy very well. 'I must be the loneliest man in the world'. Well, you're not a man. And the loneliness is self inflicted, so sod off you pathetic puerile pimp. I wonder what color his willy is. -- John Lydon
If anyone asks for your autograph they're showing you respect and give it back to them. -- John Lydon
Heaven is on this earth. There are no angels on the clouds with twanging harps ... That's just another man's fantasy. -- John Lydon
I love pop music. It's not easy to write a good pop song. -- John Lydon
Don't accept the old order. Get rid of it. -- John Lydon
I have no time for lies and fantasy, and neither should you. Enjoy or die ... -- John Lydon
If the Royal Family was going to assassinate someone, they would have gotten rid of me a long time ago. -- John Lydon
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. -- John Lydon
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! -- John Lydon
It's quite clear to me I'm not a sexist and I'm not a misogynist. -- John Lydon
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
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. -- John Lydon
Britain's an island; it's always had a constant ebb and flow of immigration - it makes it a better place. -- John Lydon
Love is 2 minutes and 52 seconds of squelching noises. -- John Lydon
Words cannot express quite a lot of feelings, whereas a noise or tone or drone or sound, an accordion falling down a staircase, can somehow capture an emotion much better. -- John Lydon
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. -- John Lydon
Any new ideas go into PiL. My inspiration is everything that the human being gets up to. I don't listen to any music when I'm in PiL-zone, because influences can poison your well. Otherwise, I listen to anything. -- John Lydon
I'm not blowing my own trumpet here, but I made a rap song 20 years ago with Afrika Bambaataa. -- John Lydon
Turn the other cheek too often and you get a razor through it. -- John Lydon
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. -- John Lydon
Dummy Dum Dum was my nickname for years at school. I was the strange one of the family, the one who couldn't remember his name. -- John Lydon
I have a sensible set of values that tell me to never lie. -- John Lydon
I love discordancy. It makes people ill at ease and wakes up a part of their brain that's normally asleep. -- John Lydon
I love a bit of flag-waving. -- John Lydon
I never thought of Green Day as a punk band. Just bubblegum, really. -- John Lydon
I'm not here for your amusement. You're here for mine. -- John Lydon
Pop music I have always loved best. But the more extreme, fascist-led examples of the music business I tend to detest the most. -- John Lydon
[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. -- John Lydon
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. -- John Lydon
I don't listen to music. I hate music. -- John Lydon
Love is two minutes fifty-two seconds of squishing noises. It shows your mind isn't clicking right. -- John Lydon
Music can describe emotions far more accurately than words ever can. As soon as I realised that, I knew music was where I wanted to be. -- John Lydon
No matter what you experience in life, it incorporates political tendencies, and in so many ways. -- John Lydon
When you grew up like me and my four brothers, you end up feeling somewhat inadequate, like somehow you don't count. -- John Lydon
Rules are important, but they're temporary and they're always supposed to be changed. -- John Lydon
There are no limits to where our brains can take us. We are, if there be a God, God's gracious creation. -- John Lydon
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. -- John Lydon
Until I see an Arab country, a Muslim country, with a democracy, I won't understand how anyone can have a problem with how they're treated. -- John Lydon
Situationism is a ludicrous proposition. It's ill-formed and it's perfectly French. That Gallic disposition towards common sense. L'Anarchie! -- John Lydon
Only the fakes survive. -- John Lydon
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. -- John Lydon
I never wore a studded leather jacket, y'know. Ne-va! -- John Lydon
The joy of life is in the work. -- John Lydon
If you give me the chance, I'll destroy America for you. -- John Lydon
I'm not able to tell you what the best song is yet, because there's more to come. I feel that in me. I can still feel the burning energy and the desire to create and create and create. -- John Lydon
I applaud the effort it takes to put a record together. -- John Lydon
Me, as a human, I never want to take away another human being's choices or lifestyles or anything. -- John Lydon
I've never told anyone this. But I suffer from terrible stage fright. True. You can't tell though, can you? Unbelievable, the panic. I nearly die of fear before I go on stage. Something wicked. I can't eat a thing the day before a gig. It'd make me vomit. -- John Lydon
Freedom isn't to do what you want at somebody else's expense. -- John Lydon
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. -- John Lydon
As a human being, I'm work in process. -- John Lydon
Do not stand in the middle, go to the right or to the left. -- John Lydon
My way of thinking as I approach any human being on this planet is, 'What are you doing now?' That's what interests me. I don't come at anybody with a whole bunch of assumptions. -- John Lydon
I've done no harm to no one. In fact, I think I've improved the world. -- John Lydon
Look, if the Situationists achieved what they wanted, they would be very unhappy and they would have to be Situationists all over again. It's a never-ending process. -- John Lydon
Americans being upright and forthright and honest and true to themselves is a very hard concept. -- John Lydon
I'm not very good at handling stupid people. I must admit. -- John Lydon
I could never be a member of a single party. I want the best of all worlds, thank you. -- John Lydon
Love is two minutes and fifty-two seconds of squishy sounds. -- John Lydon
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! -- John Lydon
My inspiration is everything that the human being gets up to. -- John Lydon
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. -- John Lydon
Books are like my one and only joy. -- John Lydon
If I'm left to my own devices, I will be tempted to make the most unlistenable music possible. -- John Lydon
My reputation is a media creation. -- John Lydon
I've always despised the hippies. -- John Lydon
It's volatile, the marriage. Which one isn't? Nothing better than a good, full-on row. Get it all out. Say rude and nasty things. And then be sorry. Genuinely sorry, afterwards. -- John Lydon
Occasionally, a re-enactment is a fine thing. I love Civil War re-enactments. -- John Lydon
I'm in England so often I haven't really left, but Americans aren't at all like they're misrepresented through their politicians. -- John Lydon
The only notes that matter come in a wad -- John Lydon
I've never done anything deliberately; I just speak my mind, and that is what I consistently do and will always do in any way shape or form that I can. -- John Lydon
If you are pissing people off, you know you are doing something right -- John Lydon
The sounds of anger are not melodic. -- John Lydon
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. -- John Lydon
Ever get the feeling you've been cheated? -- John Lydon
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. -- John Lydon
If you were to look back at me as a school kid you'd see a very quiet little church mouse kind of character. -- John Lydon
Pop music I have always loved best. -- John Lydon
I hate the technological rip-offs that pass for music formats these days, and go back to vinyl to hear a good record because the sound is always so much fuller. I don't even like listening to music in the car. -- John Lydon
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. -- John Lydon
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! -- John Lydon
Judge not others unless you're prepared to be judged! -- John Lydon
I think there's something basically wrong with the general public that they do need their icons. -- John Lydon
I've had great pleasure meeting the likes of Newt Gingrich and having a chat with the fellow on a staircase. I found him completely dishonest and totally likeable, because he doesn't care! He knows what a politician is, and he's a perfect embodiment of one. -- John Lydon
Analog, electronic, whatever it happens to be, I simply love and adore literally every aspect of making music. -- John Lydon
And then you've got a media ready to package that, because it takes away from the political content of them songs. Suddenly there's not a real serious social message, there's just a drug addict. I -- John Lydon
There's many, many ways to write a song. But generally, sitting down at a table and writing is not one of them. -- John Lydon
Live music is healthy. -- John Lydon
I like crazy people, especially those who don't see the risk. -- John Lydon
Remaining childish is a tremendous state of innocence. -- John Lydon
My words are my bullets. -- John Lydon
There's no harm in me. Really, I'm just a big kid. -- John Lydon
Music is a simulation of something, but language is the greatest thing we possess. -- John Lydon
People don't like other poor people, and rather than blame the people that make you all poor, you blame each other. -- John Lydon
I don't believe in false memories, like I don't believe in false songs. -- John Lydon
Art should be life. It's an imitation of life. It should have some humanity in it. -- John Lydon
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. -- John Lydon
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. -- John Lydon
Sometimes the most positive thing you can be in a boring society is absolutely negative. -- John Lydon
Just because people think politically different to you doesn't mean they're inhuman. -- John Lydon
I'm just permanently agitated by everything and everyone. -- John Lydon
You'll find that empty vessels make the most sound. -- John Lydon
I'd rather give up my ears than my eyes, which might sound unusual for a musician. -- John Lydon
I don't release records to be anything but enjoyable. -- John Lydon
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. -- John Lydon
People should never allow themselves to be dictated to by media. -- John Lydon