Morrissey Quotes (95 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

Morrissey: 95 quotes61 likes

Famous Morrissey Quotes

“The brain speculates but the heart knows.”

Autobiography

“It's so easy to laugh, it's so easy to hate, it takes strength to be gentle and kind.”

from the 1986 song "I Know It's Over"
From songs

“Age shouldn't affect you. It's just like the size of your shoes - they don't determine how you live your life! You're either marvellous or you're boring, regardless of your age.”

Morrissey

from "The cradle snatchers", article by Frank Worrall, Melody Maker (3 September 1983)
In interviews etc., About life and death

“There is no such thing in life as normal”

Morrissey

Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Lauretta Bender / Quotes / 1954 Senate Subcommittee Hearings into Juvenile Delinquency, "Testimony of Dr. Lauretta Bender, senior psychiatrist, Belleveu hospital Newyork N.Y." http://www.thecomicbooks.com/bender.html From songs

“I can smell burning flesh … and I hope to God it's human.”

Morrissey

"… midway through his performance, he was overcome with fumes from the backstage barbecue." - Tim Jonze Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/apr/20/morrissey-coachella-meat-fumes/. Live at Coachella festival, California (2009) In Concert

“But, ultimately, I don't have very cast iron opinions on black music other than black modern music which I detest. I detest Stevie Wonder. I think Diana Ross is awful. I hate all those records in the Top 40 - Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston. I think they're vile in the extreme. In essence this music doesn't say anything whatsoever.”

Morrissey

From "Home thoughts from abroad", article by Frank Owen, Melody Maker (27 Sep 1986)
In interviews etc., About other artists

Morrissey Quotes about thinking

“When you're young, you're afraid of being alone. Solitude is a burden and you try to escape from it. You always wonder when it's going to come to an end. Sometimes you can't get rid of it. At the age of 38, you use it in a different way. You've learned how to live with it, and you don't try to get rid of it by all means anymore. After all you may call this resignation, but I don't think it's harmful. You're not just standing there, in pain, asking yourself 'Why am I alone? Why don't I go out?' etc. You don't ask yourself these questions anymore. You adapt yourself. Living alone does not mean living in nothingness.”

Morrissey

From "My gilded prison", interview by J. C. Panek, L'Indic magazine https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'Indic_magazine (November 1997). In interviews etc., About love

“(Eating meat) is really on the same moral level as child abuse. It’s the same thing. Animals are like children, they look to us for protection. We should protect them. I really feel quite smug about mad cow disease and foot and mouth and so forth, and I just think ‘Well, what do you expect? People have been saying it for years.”

Morrissey

From the TV documentary The Importance of Being Morrissey (2003)
In interviews etc., About vegetarianism and animals

“And when I'm lying in my bed, I think about life and I think about death.
And neither one particularly appeals to me.”

Morrissey

From the song "Nowhere Fast"
From songs

“I think if I'd led an acceptably frivolous teenage life I wouldn't be singing in this group. I'm sure if you have a great time and get everything you want, all the friends you want, then you tend not to be so ambitious. If you're deprived of certain things it makes you very resilient and you kick very hard for what you want. And I wanted something very special because I'd led such an unspecial life previous to the Smiths.”

Morrissey

From "Keep young and beautiful", interview by Bill Black, Sounds (19 November 1983).
In interviews etc., About himself and his work

“Actually I despise royalty. I always have done. It's fairy story nonsense. The very idea of their existence in these days when people are dying daily because they don't have enough money to operate one's radiator in the house, to me is immoral. As far as I can see, money spent on royalty is money burnt. I've never met anyone who supports royalty, and believe me I've searched. Okay, so there's some deaf and elderly pensioner in Hartlepool who has pictures of Prince Edward pinned on the toilet seat, but I know streams of people who can't wait to get rid of them. It's a false devotion anyway. I think it's fascist and very, very cruel. To me there's something dramatically ugly about a person who can wear a dress for £6,000 when at the same time there are people who can't afford to eat. When she puts on that dress for £6,000 the statement she is making to the nation is: "I am the fantastically gifted royalty, and you are the snivelling peasants."”

Morrissey

The very idea that people would be interested in the facts about this dress is massively insulting to the human race.
from "This Charming Man", interview by Simon Garfield, Timeout March 1985
In interviews etc., About politics and society

“I think the main thing is that I very rarely recognise the actual interview in print. To me, it's like being painted by an artist. And then you see the picture, and they've painted someone else.”

Morrissey

From Oor magazine (February 1987)
In interviews etc., About interviews

Morrissey Quotes about people

“Lots of people make the stage and it can seem very violent and over the top, but it's not really. It's always a kind of gentle ballet.”

Morrissey

From "LA Confidential", interview by Jaan Uhelszki, Mojo (April 2001)
In interviews etc., About himself and his work

“That's why I do this music business thing, it's communication with people without having the extreme inconvenience of actually phoning anybody up.”

Morrissey

From the TV documentary The Importance of Being Morrissey (2003)
In interviews etc., About himself and his work

“Most people keep their brains between their legs”

Morrissey

From the song "Such a Little Thing Makes Such a Big Difference"
From songs

“Hand in glove, the good people laugh, yes we may be hidden by rags,
But we've something they'll never have”

Morrissey

from the song "Hand In Glove"
From songs

“In my life
Why do I smile
At people who I'd much rather kick in the eye?”

Morrissey

from the 1984 song "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now"
From songs

“When The Smiths began it was very important that I wouldn't be that horrible, stupid, sloppy Steven. He would have to be locked in a box and put on top of the wardrobe. l needed to feel differently and rather than adopt some glamorous pop star name, I eradicated Steven which seemed to make perfect sense. Suddenly I was a totally different person. Now when I meet pre-Smith people who call me Steven, I sit there and wonder who they're talking about. I always despised the name Steven, though being spelt with a 'v' rather than a 'ph' made life slightly more tolerable. But it was very important that Steven be drowned nonetheless.”

Morrissey

from an interview by Elissa Van Poznak in The Face (1984)
In interviews etc., About himself and his work

Morrissey: Trending quotes

“Does the body rule the mind or does the mind rule the body?
I dunno…”

Morrissey

From the song "Still Ill"
From songs

“I say a lot of things I don’t mean.”

Morrissey

interview by Andrew Harrison, Word Magazine (June 2003)
In interviews etc., About interviews

“Let’s be realistic … it’s arson. Everybody knows that. You can judge it by the speed by which the corporate media rushed to call it an accident even though the fire had just started and no one was in any position to know anything. Brainwashing! It’s a bit like hearing the full reason behind a plane crash even though the plane has yet to hit the ocean.”

Morrissey

The Interview https://www.morrisseycentral.com/messagesfrommorrissey/234417-the-interview, June 24 2019, morrisseycentral.com About the Notre Dame fire

Morrissey Quotes

“I know I've reached the stage where other artists would bleach their hair or buy a fancy costume, but, inexcusably, I can only be me, which is a full-time occupation and causes terrible backaches.”

Morrissey

From "I’ll astonish you", interview by Len Brown, Details (March 1991).
In interviews etc., About himself and his work

“When you’re a teenager and in your early twenties it seems desperately eternal and excruciatingly painful. Whereas as you grow older you realise that most things are excruciatingly painful and that is the human condition. Most of us continue to survive because we’re convinced that somewhere along the line, with grit and determination and perseverance, we will end up in some magical union with somebody. It’s a fallacy, of course, but it’s a form of religion. You have to believe. There is a light that never goes out and it’s called hope.”

Morrissey

from "I've always felt like an exile" by Andrew Billen in The Times (30th May 2006)
In interviews etc., About love

“The British judiciary continues to label animal protectionists as 'extremists', whilst being unable to consider the Holocaust carnage inside every abattoir to be extreme.”

Morrissey

Autobiography

“Music that is in the charts today is quite dreadful. I find it a great honour that I have never been considered for awards, such as NME etc. It is a personal victory. All awards shows should be banned!”

Morrissey

Speaking on Radio 2 in 2009
In interviews etc., About pop culture

“I've been dreaming of a time when
The English are sick to death of Labour and Tories
And spit upon the name Oliver Cromwell and denounce this royal line that still salutes him
And will salute him forever.”

Morrissey

from the 2004 song "Irish Blood, English Heart"
From songs

“I find Christmas very difficult”

Morrissey

Morrissey's reply to a fan's question "What do you think of Christmas?" at Earl's Court 18th December 2004[citation needed]
In Concert

“Nobody can possibly be so hungry that they need to take a life in order to feel satisfied – they don't after all, take a human life, so why take the life of an animal? Both are conscious beings with the same determination to survive. It is habit, and laziness and nothing else.”

Morrissey

Autobiography

“Oh, the alcoholic afternoons
when we sat in your room
they meant more to me
than any, than any living thing on earth”

Morrissey

From the song "These Things Take Time"
From songs

“I left my fingerprints somewhere - that's good enough. I am my own person - that's good enough. I stand my ground - that's good enough.”

Morrissey

From the TV documentary The Importance of Being Morrissey (2003)
In interviews etc., About himself and his work

“So when you say it's gonna happen now.
Well when exactly do you mean?
See I've already waited too long.
And all my hope is gone!”

Morrissey

from the 1984 song "How Soon Is Now?"
From songs

“Why pamper life's complexity when the leather runs smooth on the passenger's seat?”

Morrissey

from the 1984 song "This Charming Man"
From songs

“I'll try to sing as fast as I can, I know you all can't wait to see U2.”

Morrissey

Glastonbury Festival, 2011
In Concert

“Jools Holland: "Knock Knock!"
Morrissey: "I'm not in!"
Jools: "Oh, come on."
Morrissey: "I refuse to open the door."”

Morrissey

On Later With Jools Holland (21 May 2004)
About the Notre Dame fire, Odds & Ends

“You shut your mouth,
How can you say I go about things the wrong way?
I am human and I need to be loved
Just like everybody else does”

Morrissey

from the song "How Soon Is Now?"
From songs

“I have so much pride and love for the songs of The Smiths. However, I must ask you, if you come across any Smiths CDs, don't buy them, because all the money goes to that wretched drummer.”

Morrissey

Live at Edinburgh, (2008)
In Concert

“I think animals need all the help they can get, because they have none. They have no rights. They have no protection. And so I think animals need help. And I think animals look to humans for protection, and of course humans lead them into slaughterhouses, which to me is just like an image of leading children into a slaughterhouse. There’s no difference. That level of trust and… But it’s a very cruel world.”

Morrissey

From a Norwegian TV interview (2002)
In interviews etc., About vegetarianism and animals

“Well, the problem I've had with all the interviews I've had in America - I had meetings with about nine labels - and they all say to me "Will your new songs fit in with what is popular and what is in the chart?"”

Morrissey

And I say "Good God, I hope not!"
From a radio interview with Janice Long (2002)
In interviews etc., About pop culture

“There's more to life than books you know, but not much more”

Morrissey

from the song "Handsome Devil"
From songs

“If I die, then I die. And if I don’t, then I don’t. Right now I feel good. I am aware that in some of my recent photos I look somewhat unhealthy, but that’s what illness can do. I’m not going to worry about that, I’ll rest when I’m dead.”

Morrissey

from an interview for El Mundo (2014), regarding the announcement of Morrissey's cancer diagnosis
In interviews etc., About life and death

“DK: Have you ever been to a rave?
M: Rave is the refuge for the mentally deficient. It's made by dull people for dull people.”

Morrissey

from "Homme alone 2" by David Keeps, Details (December 1992)
About the Notre Dame fire, Odds & Ends

“The reports of my death have been greatly understated.”

Morrissey

from "Message from Morrissey," True To You http://true-to-you.net/morrissey_news_130131_01 (31 January 2013). Twist on a quote by Mark Twain. In interviews etc., About life and death

“GQ: “Were you in love with Johnny Marr?”
M: “Sexually? Absolutely not. There was a love and it was mutual and equal but it wasn’t physical or sexual. There are lots of people post-Smiths who would like to make some dramatic homosexual story. There never was one. It’s often said that Johnny rescued me but he was also bobbing about in his own lifeboat.””

Morrissey

From an interview by Adrian Deevoy in GQ http://s15.photobucket.com/albums/a366/gqarrific/, October 2005, p. 278 In interviews etc., About The Smiths

“I think that when you make a record, an album, it has to be a discovery for the person listening to it, so you don't want to pat everything out and say "this was that, this is definite, that's how it happened and that's what you should feel and that's what you should like or dislike."”

Morrissey

It's personal discovery."
From an interview with Russell Brand in 2009
In interviews etc., About pop culture

“(About Pop Idols) Obviously, it's designed by record company executives who want a cheap success, and they don't want to give money to anybody and they don't want to give contracts, so they've created this world of very bubbly teenagers who want to be "idols" and they think all they have to do is mime quite well and they've made it. … But it's not the problem of the kids, it's the problem of the record companies, because it's just an inexpensive way for them to have so-called, I won't say "artists", but erm…You're nodding, you know what I mean.”

Morrissey

From a radio interview with Janice Long (2002)
In interviews etc., About pop culture

“And you're standing on our streets
where Hector was the first of the gang
with a gun in his hand
and the first to do time
The first of the gang to die / oh my”

Morrissey

From the 2002 song "First of the gang to die"
From songs

“I suppose you have work tomorrow? That's quite sad, really.”

Morrissey

live in Claremont, CA (1997)[citation needed]
In Concert

“It's the nicest birthday I've ever had. You've made a happy man very old.”

Morrissey

From Who Put The 'M' In Manchester? (2004)
In Concert

“I'm here with the cause, I'm holding the torch
In the corner of your room- can you hear me?
And when you're dancing and laughing, and finally living,
Hear my voice in your head and think of me kindly.”

Morrissey

From the song "Rubber Ring"
From songs

“TF: At which point did you stop being celibate, why and who with?
M: I don't see how anyone would benefit from seeing that kind of information in print. Least of all me.”

Morrissey

From "The Face Q&A", The Face (November 1999).
In interviews etc., About love

“I can't believe I'm 29. Where did the years go? Why did the years go?”

Morrissey

From Who Put The 'M' In Manchester? (2004)
In Concert

“Not everybody is absolutely stupid. Why on earth would I be racist, what would I be trying to achieve?”

Morrissey

From the TV documentary The Importance of Being Morrissey (2003)
In interviews etc., About himself and his work

“Because he (Elton John) is pushing his face in all the time, and telling us about his private life. Nobody's interested, he's incredibly rich, he should just go away, and he's just hoisting his problems onto everybody and working them out publicly and…I've said enough.”

Morrissey

From an radio interview with Janice Long (2002)
In interviews etc., About other artists

“I could never really make the connection between Christian and Catholic. I always imagined that Christ would look down upon the Catholic church and totally disassociate himself from it. I went to severe schools, working class schools, where they would almost chop your fingers off for your own good, and if you missed church on Sunday and went to school on a Monday and they quizzed you on it, you'd be sent to the gallows. It was like 'Brush you teeth NOW or you will DIE IN HELL and you will ROT and all these SNAKES will EAT you'. And I remember all these religious figures, statues, which used to petrify every living child. All these snakes trodden underfoot and blood everywhere. I thought it was so morbid. I mean the very idea of just going to church anyway is really quite absurd. I always felt that it was really like the police, certainly in this country at any rate, just there to keep the working classes humble and in their place. Because of course nobody else but the working class pays any attention to it. I really feel quite sick when I see the Pope giving long, overblown, inflated lectures on nuclear weapons and then having tea with Margaret Thatcher. To me it's total hypocrisy. And when I hear the Pope completely condemning working class women for having abortions and condemning nobody else… to me the whole thing is entirely class ridden, it's just really to keep the working classes in perpetual fear and feeling total guilt.”

Morrissey

from "All men have secrets and these are Morrissey’s", interview by Neil McCormick,Hot Press (4 May 1984)
In interviews etc., About life and death

“And you even spoke to me, and said :
"If you're so funny
Then why are you on your own tonight?
And if you're so clever
Then why are you on your own tonight?
If you're so very entertaining
Then why are you on your own tonight?
If you're so very good-looking
Why do you sleep alone tonight?
I know…
'Cause tonight is just like any other night
That's why you're on your own tonight
With your triumphs and your charms
While they're in each other's arms…"”

Morrissey

From the 1986 song "I Know It's Over"
From songs

“I am unable to watch the Olympics due to the blustering jingoism that drenches the event. Has England ever been quite so foul with patriotism? The "dazzling royals" have, quite naturally, hi-jacked the Olympics for their own empirical needs, and no oppositional voice is allowed in the free press. It is lethal to witness. As London is suddenly promoted as a super-wealth brand, the England outside London shivers beneath cutbacks, tight circumstances and economic disasters. Meanwhile the British media present 24-hour coverage of the "dazzling royals", laughing as they lavishly spend, as if such coverage is certain to make British society feel fully whole. In 2012, the British public is evidently assumed to be undersized pigmies, scarcely able to formulate thought.”

Morrissey

from a statement on the website 'True To You' 2012
In interviews etc., About politics and society

“M: If you cannot impress people simply by being part of the great fat human race, then you really do have to develop other skills. And if you don't impress people by the way you look, then you really do have to develop other skills. And if you are now going to ask is everything I did just a way to gain some form of attention, well that's not entirely true. It is in a small way, but that's in the very nature of being alive.
PM: Wanting to be loved?
M: To be seen, above all else. I wanted to be noticed, and the way I lived and do live has a desperate neurosis about it because of that. All humans need a degree of attention. Some people get it at the right time, when they are 13 or 14, people get loved at the right stages. If this doesn't happen, if the love isn't there, you can quite easily just fade away. … In a sense I always felt that being troubled as a teenager was par for the course. I wasn't sure that I was dramatically unique. I knew other people who were at the time desperate and suicidal. They despised life and detested all other living people. In a way that made me feel a little bit secure. Because I thought, well, maybe I'm not so intense after all. Of course, I was. I despised practically everything about human life, which does limit one's weekend activities”

Morrissey

From "Wilde child", interview by Paul Morley, Blitz (April 1988).
In interviews etc., About himself and his work

“But sometimes I'd feel more fulfilled making Christmas cards with the mentally ill.
I want to live and I want to love.
I want to catch something that I might be ashamed of.”

Morrissey

From the song "Frankly Mr. Shankly"
From songs

“DK: How often does the seriousness end and the irony begin in your work?
M: Many times. I have a grand and endless capacity to find myself slightly ridiculous. I'm not pretending to be some wallowing prophet, for heaven's sake. I think we all have to sit down and look in the mirror and think, What is that absurd monstrosity?”

Morrissey

from "Homme alone 2" by David Keeps, Details (December 1992)
In interviews etc., About himself and his work

“I don't perform. Seals perform.”

Morrissey

From an interview with Russell Brand in December 2006, also quoted in the March 2007 issue of Uncut.
In interviews etc., About himself and his work

“CH: Have you told many fibs today?
M: I lie a lot - it's really useful - but everything I've said today has been the whole truth and nothing but the truth. So help me… er… Trevor…”

Morrissey

Interview by Chris Heath, Star Hits (1987)
About the Notre Dame fire, Odds & Ends

“I shake like a ship in a storm. It is a fact that even warming moments overwhelm me with despair, and this is why I am I.”

Morrissey

Autobiography

“Strangely, I liked them (the Sex Pistols) until they made records. I saw them quite a few times before they actually made records. And when they did, it just became… suddenly punk had this enormous scope and was everywhere. Obviously it lost everything. And looking back, I don't really have that much affection for the whole punk thing. It really didn't mean so much to me at all. But of course, I would rather it have been there than not.”

Morrissey

From a radio interview with David Jensen (1983)
In interviews etc., About other artists

“So I broke into the palace, with a sponge and a rusty spanner
She said "eh, I know you and you cannot sing"
I said "that's nothing you should hear me play piano"”

Morrissey

From the song "The Queen Is Dead (Take Me Back To Dear Old Blighty)"
From songs

“It (synthesizers and drum machines) has contributed greatly (to an 'antiseptic' sound). And the fact is, when I look back on the last few years I really can't remember that much of the music, such is its lasting effect. I think it's instantly forgettable and it horrifies me in many respects. It's so sterile and non-human. I don't understand why people play non-human music. It really mystifies me when we're human beings. It's strange. I hate it.”

Morrissey

From a radio interview with David Jensen in 1983
In interviews etc., About pop culture

“Well, I think the way you feel as a teenager stays with you, forever. I really believe that. And we try to change and we hope that we change, but we don't really in big ways, in serious ways. I think the personality is formed at that time, for the good and for the bad. … We all want to grow up and move on and appear to be different to people. And we want people to see us in a different way. But, I don't know, I think the personality is very, very strongly cemented, and we just bear whatever shortcomings we have and learn to live with it.”

Morrissey

From a radio interview by Jed the fish (1997)
In interviews etc., About life and death

“There's a club if you'd like to go, you could meet somebody who really loves you,
so you go and you stand on your own,
and you leave on your own,
and you go home and you cry and you want to die”

Morrissey

from the song "How Soon Is Now?"
From songs

“And if a double-decker bus crashes into us, to die by your side is such a heavenly way to die.
And if a ten ton truck kills the both of us, to die by your side,
the pleasure, the privilege is mine.”

Morrissey

from the 1986 song "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out"
From songs

“I was quite advanced when I was at school, and when I left school it seemed that all these really oafish clods from school were making tremendous progress and had wonderfully large cars and lots of money, and I seemed to be constantly waiting for a bus that never came.”

Morrissey

from "Oxford Road Show", BBC2 (March 1985)
In interviews etc., About himself and his work

“Well, I think when I was a child, more than anything else I wanted not to be ordinary. And I wanted to be considered to be a bit peculiar. When I was at school I wanted to be peculiar and I was delighted when I was at secondary school and I was actually thought to be peculiar (laughs). It was fantastically good for me because I looked around me and I thought, 'Well, however you are I don't want to be like you, so if you think I'm unbalanced then I'm delighted.”

Morrissey

That really stayed with me.
From "Morrissey speaks to NME", interview by Alex Needham, NME (17 April 2004).
In interviews etc., About himself and his work

“As Anthony said to Cleopatra as he opened a crate of ale:
"Oh, I say, some girls are bigger than others,
Some girls' mothers are bigger than other girls' mothers.”

Morrissey

From the song "Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others"
From songs