xy

@xy, member from Sept. 25, 2023
John Lydon photo
John Lydon photo

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

John Lydon (1956) English singer, songwriter, and musician

On the 2003 panel TV show The Belzer Connection, when asked if there was a conspiracy in the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.

John Lydon photo
John Lydon photo

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

John Lydon (1956) English singer, songwriter, and musician

Source: [John, Tobler, 1992, NME Rock 'N' Roll Years, 1st, Reed International Books Ltd, London, 303, CN 5585]

John Lydon photo

“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 (1956) English singer, songwriter, and musician

Interview: Seven Magazine in the London Telegraph (6 January 2008)

John Lydon photo
John Lydon photo

“[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 (1956) English singer, songwriter, and musician

The Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder (27th June 1980)

John Lydon photo

“[On Sid Vicious] Yes I can take on England, but I couldn't take on one heroin addict.”

John Lydon (1956) English singer, songwriter, and musician

The Filth and the Fury (2000)

John Lydon photo

“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 (1956) English singer, songwriter, and musician

The Jimmy Kimmel Show (4th September 2003)

John Lydon photo

“It’s a record that I still can play to this day, and still hear new things.”

John Lydon (1956) English singer, songwriter, and musician

The Kate Bush Story (2014)
Context: My favourite album by her is The Dreaming, and I think she produced that one herself. That got a lot of criticism — but I loved it. It was overloaded with textures, and tones and all manner of things. It’s a record that I still can play to this day, and still hear new things.

John Lydon photo

“I'm not very good at handling stupid people. I must admit.”

John Lydon book Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs

Source: Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs

John Lydon photo

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

John Lydon (1956) English singer, songwriter, and musician

At the end of the last Sex Pistols concert, Winterland Theater, San Francisco, California (14 January 1978)

John Lydon photo
John Lydon photo

“If you are pissing people off, you know you are doing something right”

John Lydon book Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs

Source: Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs

John Lydon photo

“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 (1956) English singer, songwriter, and musician

but that's exactly what drew me in.
On Kate Bush's first hit, "Wuthering Heights"
The Kate Bush Story (2014)

Orhan Pamuk photo

“The question we writers are asked most often, the favorite question, is: Why do you write? I write because I have an innate need to write. I write because I can’t do normal work as other people do. I write because I want to read books like the ones I write. I write because I am angry at everyone. I write because I love sitting in a room all day writing. I write because I can partake of real life only by changing it. I write because I want others, the whole world, to know what sort of life we lived, and continue to live, in Istanbul, in Turkey. I write because I love the smell of paper, pen, and ink. I write because I believe in literature, in the art of the novel, more than I believe in anything else. I write because it is a habit, a passion. I write because I am afraid of being forgotten. I write because I like the glory and interest that writing brings. I write to be alone. Perhaps I write because I hope to understand why I am so very, very angry at everyone. I write because I like to be read. I write because once I have begun a novel, an essay, a page I want to finish it. I write because everyone expects me to write. I write because I have a childish belief in the immortality of libraries, and in the way my books sit on the shelf. I write because it is exciting to turn all life’s beauties and riches into words. I write not to tell a story but to compose a story. I write because I wish to escape from the foreboding that there is a place I must go but—as in a dream—can’t quite get to. I write because I have never managed to be happy. I write to be happy.”

Orhan Pamuk (1952) Turkish novelist, screenwriter, and Nobel Prize in Literature recipient

" My Father's Suitcase", Nobel Prize for Literature lecture http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2006/pamuk-lecture_en.html (December 7, 2006).

Orhan Pamuk photo

“… love is deep attention, deep compassion…”

Orhan Pamuk book The Museum of Innocence

The Museum of Innocence

Orhan Pamuk photo
Orhan Pamuk photo