John S. Hall Quotes

John S. Hall is an American poet, author, singer and lawyer perhaps best known for his work with King Missile, an avant-garde band that he co-founded in 1986 and has since led in various incarnations. Wikipedia

✵ 2. September 1960

Works

Jesus Was Way Cool

Jesus Was Way Cool

John S. Hall

John S. Hall: 55 quotes 1 like

Famous John S. Hall Quotes

“In a way, I suppose you could say my experience is quite limited. For example, I never locked Oliver Cromwell in a broom closet while singing "Waltzing Matilda." I never sawed a television in half, although I once saw Wendy O. Williams saw a guitar. I never played a decent game of jacks. I never played poker with a toothless one-eyed pirate who kept picking his teeth with a Bowie knife to distract me, while his parrot looked over my shoulder and told him what cards I had by using an elaborate code involving vomiting, chirping, and sea chanteys.”

John S. Hall

"I'm Sorry"
Lyrics, Happy Hour (1992)

“Many people talk as if they have all the answers, whereas I know I don't. That's probably why no one listens to me.”

John S. Hall

July 26
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

“When I'm feeling proud of myself, I should remember to ask myself why I think I am of any value at all. I have done nothing that a hundred thousand other people couldn't do, and most of them would probably do it better, and they probably wouldn't feel so self-important about it. I should always be ashamed of myself.”

John S. Hall

November 8
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

“I can't make people change, and I can't change myself. I can't change the political climate, or fix the myriad problems of the world, or make anyone else happy. When I think about these things, I feel impotent and sad. When I don't think about them, I am running away from the truth. Either way I lose.”

John S. Hall

December 17
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

“It may seem sometimes that the whole world is against me and the reason I have failed in life is because of fate—that I was destined to fail, and there was nothing I could have done. But that's not true. There was plenty I could have done. Why didn't I do something?”

John S. Hall

March 15
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

“I want to be different, like everybody else I want to be like. I want to be just like all the different people. I have no further interest in being the same, because I have seen difference all around, and now I know that that's what I want. I don't want to blend in and be indistinguishable. I want to be part of the different crowd, and assert my individuality along with others who are different like me.”

John S. Hall

"It's Saturday"
Lyrics, Happy Hour (1992)

John S. Hall Quotes about people

“It is extremely unlikely that I will ever be one of the richest people in the world. Almost all rich people were born rich, and almost all of them marry other rich people, and almost all of them hold onto almost all of their money, to pass on to their kids. Money doesn't appear out of nowhere—the more they have, the less for me. Life is a "zero sum game," and I am the zero.”

John S. Hall

November 1
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

“There will always be people who have power over me, who can destroy my spirit and drain my soul. My best defense is to behave as if I have no soul, to act as if my spirit has already been crushed. Perhaps then, I will be left alone or ignored.”

John S. Hall

June 11
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

“Jesus was way cool. He told people to eat his body and drink his blood. That's so cool. Jesus was so cool. But then some people got jealous of how cool he was, so they killed him. But then he rose from the dead! He rose from the dead, danced around, and went up to heaven. I mean, that's so cool. Jesus was way cool. No wonder there are so many Christians.”

John S. Hall Jesus Was Way Cool

"Jesus Was Way Cool"
Lyrics, Mystical Shit (1990)

“…I don't like to make judgments about what people like sexually. Some people like one sex, or the other, or they like fat people, or they like to be tied up, whatever. That's fine. Whatever people like is fine by me. I think that's important, too, because in this country a lot of people want to make laws about that and I'm very much against that. Making certain kinds of sex illegal… To me that's immoral, to illegalize things that people want to do. Same with religious things. I think people should be able to believe whatever they want to believe. I think that when governments try to get involved with that sort of stuff, you're really destroying people's souls. I don't make statements like that in my songs because that's not what I want. I don't want to make a political statement.”

John S. Hall

Interview by Elein Fleiss and Olivier Zahm, ca. 1992 ( link http://adaweb.com/~purple/kingm.html)
Quotes from interviews

“I think it is considered bad to be clever, because I think people usually assume that a clever person or a clever band doesn't have substance, doesn't really care about anything. People want music that matters, that believes in something, I think, whether it expresses anger or despair or love. People want to believe that their artists are portraying emotions that they really feel. And I think that's true of Patsy Cline, Johnny Rotten, whoever you want to name. If you believe the artist, you're going to go for it.”

John S. Hall

Quotes from interviews

“I can read books and news articles about people who have excelled, people who have done extremely well in their chosen field, or made a lot of money, or married well, or what have you. When some people read this stuff, they get inspired, but when I read it, it makes me feel worse. Sometimes I wish I had never learned to read.”

John S. Hall

September 18
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

John S. Hall Quotes about thinking

“Tonight, I should watch the sun set, and think of the impending darkness as a metaphor for my wasted life: once it was bright, and full of potential, and now it is dark and hopeless and bleak. I should not make the mistake of thinking that the moon and the stars represent slim glimmers of hope, or evidence that there is light on the other side. Even if there is light somewhere I will never walk in it again.”

John S. Hall

March 25
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

“Some of the [band's] work has a genuine feeling behind it. Some of it is probably just being funny for the sake of being funny. Obviously, there are elements to "Detachable [Penis]" about male identity that are there, but not really overtly there. For the person who wants to find it, it's there. I don't know. I don't think… I like to think I'm not obvious about the humor, and I'm not obvious about the feelings, either. There's a certain degree of subtlety to what I'm doing; even in very obvious things, there's something underneath that's interesting. I think [the band is] guilty of being clever at times, to the detriment of conveying something more important, more real, more honest. I'll cop to that. But I will also say that there's also stuff that does have meaning.”

John S. Hall

Interview by Stephen Thompson, The A.V. Club, November 11, 1998 ( link http://www.avclub.com/content/node/23128)
Quotes from interviews

“When my mind is operating at its peak, it should depress me to think that this is the best I can do, because it's not very good at all. When my mind is operating normally, I should be even more depressed.”

John S. Hall

January 14
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

“Today, for five minutes, I will sit quietly and meditate and think pleasant thoughts and I will recite gentle positive messages to myself. Oh yeah, that really sounds like me. I'm sure I'm going to do that. Right.”

John S. Hall

April 1
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

“Today, I should think of something about myself that really annoys me, and I should try to change it. Then, when I fail to change it, I can be annoyed by that as well. Then, I can be annoyed about how easily I get annoyed. Then I can get angry.”

John S. Hall

February 16
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

“Today, I will try to remember to regret the past. I will think of how many mistakes I have made throughout my life. I will say to myself, "If only I could go back in time and make different choices, so that my life could be the way it should have been."”

John S. Hall

Then I will remind myself that I cannot.
March 16
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

John S. Hall: Trending quotes

“It is better to curse the darkness than to light a candle, because, first of all, how much light is one candle going to shed anyway? And secondly, what is there to see that is so important? Whereas cursing is always satisfying. The next time I find myself in the dark, I will curse heartily.”

John S. Hall

October 30
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

Light , Time

“I am a sensitive artist. Nobody understands me because I am so deep. In my work, I make allusions to books that nobody else has read, music that nobody else has heard, and art that nobody else has seen. I can't help it, because I am so much more intelligent and well-rounded than everyone who surrounds me.”

John S. Hall

"Sensitive Artist"
Lyrics, Fluting on the Hump (1987)

Books , Art , Music , Intelligence

“Sometimes I feel I do know what to believe in. Sometimes I believe in working, writing, performing, doing the work. Other times I'm full of despair and I don't even believe in that, but for some reason I will get out of bed and do something anyway, even though I don't believe in it.”

John S. Hall

Quotes from interviews

Feeling , Time , Despair

John S. Hall Quotes

“I am so far away from being the person I want to be. I am a terrible person and I am overwhelmed with guilt. I am paralyzed with shame and fear. If I work hard at improving myself each day, I may get a little tiny bit better, but I won't get much better—I'll never be great. It's too late for me. I've really blown it.”

John S. Hall

November 22
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

Fear , Personality

“Why don't I have enough money? The answer is obvious. Money is how people are measured. What you are worth is what you are worth. The reason I am not worth very much is because I am not worth very much. Nothing could be simpler.”

John S. Hall

October 20
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

Money , People

“It's not just that I'm stupid; it's that I'm just smart enough to know how stupid I am. I wish I weren't so stupid. Or that I were stupider.”

John S. Hall

August 19
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

Stupidity

“Life is so much easier today than it was a hundred years ago. People used to have to work on farms from sun-up to sun-down, and still their children would die, and there often wouldn't be enough to eat. I wouldn't have lasted three days under such conditions. I have no right to be alive.”

John S. Hall

July 22
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

Life , Children , People , Sun

“The task that lies before me is daunting and the rewards are uncertain. I should probably let someone else do it.”

John S. Hall

June 15
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

“[M]y father was a really great man. I'll never forget the last thing he ever said to me. Nor will I ever repeat it.”

John S. Hall

"My Father"
Lyrics, The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (2003)

Forgetting

“When I accept another person's imperfections, I deprive myself of any opportunity to be right. Today, I should look out for people who might challenge or annoy me. They are wrong, and I am right. The more I attack others, the more important I will become.”

John S. Hall

November 14
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

People , Personality

“I am not well suited to the tasks that are set before me today. Most of what I must do is either insulting to my intelligence, or far beyond my capabilities. This explains why I am so frustrated and full of rage most of the time.”

John S. Hall

April 12
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

Intelligence , Rage , Time

“Of all the stuff I write, probably 75% never gets recorded. Sometimes it's because I've read it at shows a few times to lukewarm response. But usually it's because I think it's not right. I will sometimes rewrite the same idea a few times before it feels good. I do this as opposed to taking a piece and tinkering with it in an effort to make it right. The earlier drafts wouldn't (and shouldn't) get recorded, because they're not as good.”

John S. Hall

Quotes from interviews

Feeling , Idea , Thinking , Effort

“My heart is a flower, budding, blooming, dripping dew, dropping petals all over the place, making a big hopeless mess, stinking things up, waiting for someone to come flying over and suck the pollen out of me. Suck me dry. 'Til I wilt. 'Til I am nothing. 'Til next spring.”

John S. Hall

"My Heart Is a Flower"
Lyrics, The Way to Salvation (1991)

Spring , Flowers , Waiting , Heart

“I have tried very hard to find meaning in what I do, but I have found instead a vast and limitless nothingness. I tried to embrace the nothingness, but it slipped through my grasp, and now there is nothing where the nothingness was. This may sound meaningful, but it isn't.”

John S. Hall

June 16
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

“There is no better feeling than the feeling that I have done something right. That feeling comes so rarely and is so fleeting that I can never really enjoy it. So in a way, it's not a good feeling at all.”

John S. Hall

October 7
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

Way , Feeling

“A tree does not try to be a koala bear. A dog does not try to be a bird. A stone does not pretend it is alive. Why should I pretend I am intelligent, or good-looking, or successful?”

John S. Hall

July 16
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

Dogs , Intelligence , Bird , Tree

“Gary and Melissa loved to make love, loved to make love, loved to make love to each other over and over and over again. For the first few weeks of their relationship, they made love four or five times a night. They were really turned on for a while. Then, to heighten their passion, they bought sex books: The Joy of Sex, The Sensuous Couple, The Joy of Sex Part Two, The Kama Sutra, Even Yet Still More Joy of Sex, Popular Mechanics, Betty Crocker, anything.”

John S. Hall

"Gary & Melissa"
Lyrics, Mystical Shit (1990)

Love , Books , Making love , Sex

“If I work hard and am rewarded, then I haven't really gained anything. It has been a trade: I've put in, and I've gotten back. Only if I am rewarded without having done anything have I actually come out ahead. The best way to gain the most is to do nothing.”

John S. Hall

July 4
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

Way

“If I take things slowly today in order to appreciate life better, and if I take time to listen to the messages that life sends me, then I will have less time to do the things I need to do today. Then tomorrow I will have to do everything that much faster and I will be that much more unable to appreciate life. It is dangerous to stop and smell the roses.”

John S. Hall

November 26
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

Life , Time

“Sometimes if you go to see a very, very, happy movie, a Hollywood movie, you can walk out of the movie and feel very depressed because it's so false. And other times you see a very depressing movie and it makes you feel good, happy because you've seen something real. You've seen something that talks to you and says that your bad feelings are legitimate. And then you can go further with that and say, "Well, this bad feeling is good, and this good feeling is bad, but is it good to feel bad and is it bad to feel good?" I'm concerned with feelings. And sometimes when I feel good, I'll write something very negative because I have the strength to do it. But when I really, really feel very bad, what I want to do is make myself feel better, so I'll write something happier.”

John S. Hall

Quotes from interviews

Feeling , Time , Falseness , Happiness

“Today, life will offer me many lessons. I will learn nothing.”

John S. Hall

April 18
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

Life , Learning

“Perhaps I will achieve a small success today. If so, I must not be taken in. I am not on a roll, I am not in the zone. It was an accident, a happenstance. Such things are bound to happen sometimes. The false feeling of confidence will soon pass.”

John S. Hall

March 13
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

Feeling , Confidence , Success , Falseness

“The fact that many people overindulge, and lose themselves in excess, and make fools of themselves and act like idiots, is no reason for me to do these things. The reason for me to do these things is that I, too, am an idiot.”

John S. Hall

March 17
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

People , Fools

“When I am tired, it is easy to believe that my exhaustion is the reason I am depressed and lonely and uninspired. But when I am well-rested [sic], I can realize that these negative feelings are not a result of too little sleep. They are a result of my being a miserable, hopeless, misanthropic wretch.”

John S. Hall

September 3
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

Feeling , Sleep

“I am not successful and I probably never will be. I look around and I see successful people, and I see that they have something I don't—success. Perhaps they were born that way, or perhaps they figured something out that I can never seem to learn. I don't know. That's why I'm not successful.”

John S. Hall

December 12
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

People , Way , Learning , Success

“Ed walked away from the program feeling fortified and stapled. His brain was buzzing, the way it always did just after Jeopardy! He loaded up the microbus with Atlases and poseidons and headed for Pope County. "I've had it," he sang. "I've had it with puns, alliteration, Russian literature, Italian neorealism, meaningless cross-references, and laundry lists of nonsense. I shall drive without a license, without clothing, without direction, and if I make it to Arkansas, fine, and if I'm running late, if I'm running a numbers game, it doesn't matter, I shall keep on running. Yes, this is the answer. This is the ending. I shall keep on running, because a body in motion tends to stay emotional, and it's better to feel. Pain is better than emptiness, emptiness is better than nothing, and nothing is better than this."”

John S. Hall

"Ed"
Lyrics, Happy Hour (1992)

Pain , Way , Feeling , Game

“If most of us were wind up-toys, could we trust the few of us that weren't to wind us up when necessary? I think not. We would be a separate oppressed minority. Even if we were in the majority, it would still be that way. The ones that weren't wind-up toys would have the upper hand, and we would have to look out for each other, because they wouldn't.”

John S. Hall

"Wind-Up Toys"
Lyrics, Real Men (1991)

Way , Thinking

“I've done bad things with relish, and good things with pickles.”

John S. Hall

"Ennui"
Lyrics, The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (2003)

“I'm a vegetarian now, but I'm willing to make an exception in the event I'm presented with people. Because I've always been fairly standoffish; I have this tendency not to get to know people very well. And I don't think there is any better way to get to know humanity than to ingest it.”

John S. Hall

"Eating People"
Lyrics, The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (2003)

People , Way , Thinking

“It seems, in theory, that I should be able to control at least a few of my bad habits. The problem is that my habits make me depressed, and the depression makes me want to indulge my habits and so I do. There isn't any solution to this.”

John S. Hall

May 23
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

Problem

“Whenever the circus would come to town, I would tell Ethan all kinds of kinky clown domination stories involving the leather clown, like the time she forced me to have sex with her in the little car, or the time she kept spraying me with the seltzer bottle until I obeyed her every command. Ethan and I would laugh and laugh at these tall tales, but I could tell deep down, he was wondering whether the leather clown was really real or not. And I would let him wonder.”

John S. Hall

"Leather Clown"
Lyrics, They (1988)

Sex , Cars , Time

“I woke up this morning with a bad hangover and my penis was missing again. This happens all the time; it's detachable.”

John S. Hall

Lyrics, Happy Hour (1992)

Time

“…I wanna know about the commercial I saw on TV: An Irish guy walking through a field of green, whistling one of those Irish jigs, and a woman walks up and says, "Manly, yes, but I like it too." Then the guy pulls out a huge knife and cuts off his first two fingers and somehow catches them in what's left of his left hand and hands them to the woman. Did I mention they're both dressed in green? They they both sing this song together: "Are ya icky? Are ya sticky? Are ya hot as anything? Hey! Cut off two of your fingers, and stab yourself in the eye!"”

John S. Hall

Then he stabs himself in the eye and hands her the knife, and she stabs herself in the eye, okay? Okay? So what about that?
"The Commercial"
Lyrics, King Missile (1994)

Guy , Singing

“Today, it may seem as if there are demons attacking me from within. I should remember that demons are illusory, and that when I think that I'm being attacked by unseen forces, it probably just means that I am going insane.”

John S. Hall

May 2
Quotes from Daily Negations (2007)

Thinking

“You are responsible for all of your successes, and the lack thereof. And that is the essential point that failure, your ever-faithful friend, wants to make: that your failure could not exist without you—without your stupidity, without your lies, without your mistakes, your uselessness, your lack of faith, your ineptitude, your unjustifiable confidence in your alleged abilities, you stupid loser—failure is your only friend. Failure is your only lover. Failure is your only hope.”

John S. Hall

"Failure"
Lyrics, Failure (1998)

Stupidity , Faith , Hope , Confidence

“I think these are some of the common themes [of my work]: a) life is hard, brutal, capricious and unfair, b) sometimes there is a benefit to seeing it clearly, and acknowledging it truthfully…, and c) other times it is best to find something to laugh about, lest despair crush one completely. I find a lot of humor in shocking or so-called taboo things: castration, excrement, violence (usually self-inflicted or inflicted on the narrator, "[Martin] Scorsese" being an exception), sex and sexual perversions… etc.”

John S. Hall

Interview by Mark Prindle, 2003 ( link http://www.markprindle.com/hall-i.htm)
Quotes from interviews

Life , Sex , Thinking , Time

“I was a teenage wuss. In junior high school, I had oily, stringy hair and lots of pimples. I wore really wussy clothes. Most of the kids called me a faggot. Even some of the other wusses called me a faggot. There was maybe five kids in the whole school who were wussier than I was. I was really wussed out. I was afraid of girls, and guys scared the shit out of me.”

John S. Hall

"Wuss"
Lyrics, Fluting on the Hump (1987)

School , Clothes , Girl , Guy

Similar authors

Mathias Malzieu photo

Mathias Malzieu 8

French singer

Vasco Rossi photo

Vasco Rossi 18

Italian singer-songwriter

Andrew Biersack photo

Andrew Biersack 24

American singer-songwriter

Demi Lovato photo

Demi Lovato 19

American singer, songwriter, actress, and author

Tyler Joseph photo

Tyler Joseph 6

American singer-songwriter and record producer

Chester Bennington photo

Chester Bennington 1

American singer-songwriter

Christopher Paolini photo

Christopher Paolini 166

American author

Billie Joe Armstrong photo

Billie Joe Armstrong 26

American singer and guitarist

Cassandra Clare photo

Cassandra Clare 2041

American author

Jon Bon Jovi photo

Jon Bon Jovi 26

American singer and musician