John Lydon quotes

John Lydon is an English singer, songwriter, and musician best known as the lead vocalist of the punk band the Sex Pistols. His outspoken personality and unique style made him a central figure in the punk movement of the late 1970s. He later led the influential post-punk band Public Image Ltd and continues to perform and comment on social issues. Here are 175 of his quotes:

Ever get the feeling you've been cheated? Good night!

John Lydon

Turn the other cheek too often and you get a razor through it.

John Lydon

If the Royal Family was going to assassinate someone, they would have gotten rid of me a long time ago.

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

You don't write "God Save The Queen" because you hate the English race, you write a song like that because you love them; and you're fed up with them being mistreated.

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. Once I come off? I could eat a scampied elephant between two buttered mattresses. But I'm kinda glad about the stage fright. I've read Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud about their terror. And I reckon it's what gets the adrenalin going.

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

England's a violent place. Too violent for me. That's why I prefer it here (the USA). For a gun-toting nation, Americans are surprisingly passive. This place suits me and the wife.

John Lydon

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

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

U2 - that's a band that never should have existed. There's no life experience in any of their songs.

John Lydon

The only things I've ever confronted are institutions, religion, politics, but never my fellow human beings, and yet my fellow human beings find the need to defend those very things that are restricting their freedoms. God, that sounds like a speech. Should I run for president?

John Lydon

It's a family house.

John Lydon

When I first heard it, I thought that's extremely challenging, the vocal - it was almost hysterical, and it was so up there, the register, but it was absolutely fascinating. And I know at the time a lot of my friends couldn't bear it, they thought it was just "too much"

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

[On the lyrics of his songs] They meant a lot to my generation. And it's nice to know you've written songs that mean something to someone rather than some trivial pop dirge. I'm not thriving off a career slagging off the Queen. 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

Would the king of punks be a cliché? Oh, no, vicar.

John Lydon

The class system is there to remind you that you're just a dirty oik because you came from that side of the tracks.

John Lydon

I've not done any of this for superstardom, quite the opposite. I threw away the rock star mantle. And for that, there's resentment too: ‘How dare he, how dare he.'

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

I love consumerism, TV culture, shopping malls. There's nothing I'd ever buy, but I like being there. It's wacky.

John Lydon

It's no more of that 12 bar ditty wavy hair in the breeze platform boots flap your flare nonsense. It's not a packaged image of third-rate idiots. It's not a pose. We just do our stuff. Hate it as it usually is, you know I was very shocked by the reviews of the last album. I believe none of them. They liked us for the wrong reasons, trendy reasons.

John Lydon