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Morrissey Quotes
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Steven Patrick Morrissey , known mononymously as Morrissey, is an English singer, songwriter and author. He came to prominence as the frontman of the Smiths, a rock band active from 1982 to 1987. Since then, Morrissey has had a solo career, making the top ten of the UK Singles Chart on ten occasions and reaching number one on the UK Albums Chart thrice.

Born in Davyhulme, Lancashire, to a working-class Irish migrant family, Morrissey grew up in Manchester. As a child he developed a love of literature, kitchen sink realism, and pop music. Involved in Manchester's punk rock scene during the late 1970s, he fronted the Nosebleeds, with little success. Beginning a career in music journalism, he authored several books on music and film in the early 1980s. With Johnny Marr he formed the Smiths in 1982, soon attracting national recognition for their eponymous debut album. As the band's frontman, Morrissey attracted attention for his baritone voice, witty and sardonic lyrics, and idiosyncratic appearance; deliberately avoiding rock machismo, he cultivated the aesthetic of a social outsider who eschewed drugs and embraced celibacy. The Smiths released three further studio albums—Meat Is Murder, The Queen Is Dead, and Strangeways, Here We Come—and had a string of hit singles. Personal differences between Morrissey and Marr resulted in the termination of the band in 1987.

In 1988, Morrissey launched his solo career with Viva Hate. This album and its follow-ups—Kill Uncle, Your Arsenal, and Vauxhall and I—all did well on the UK Albums Chart and spawned multiple hit singles. During this time his image began to shift into that of a burlier figure, who toyed with patriotic imagery and working-class masculinity. In the mid-to-late 1990s, his albums Southpaw Grammar and Maladjusted, also charted but were less well received. Relocating to Los Angeles, he took a musical hiatus from 1998 to 2003 before releasing a successful comeback album, You Are the Quarry, in 2004. Ensuing years saw the release of albums Ringleader of the Tormentors, Years of Refusal, and World Peace Is None of Your Business. He released his autobiography in 2013, followed by his first novel in 2015. His eleventh solo studio album, Low in High School, was released in 2017.

Highly influential, Morrissey has been credited as a seminal figure in the emergence of indie rock and Britpop. Acclaimed as one of the greatest lyricists in British history, his lyrics have become the subject of academic study. He has courted controversy with his forthright opinions—endorsing vegetarianism and animal rights, criticising royalty and prominent politicians, and defending a particular vision of English national identity. In a 2006 poll for the BBC's The Culture Show, Morrissey was voted the second-greatest living British cultural icon.

✵ 22. May 1959   •   Other names Steven Patrick Morrissey
Morrissey photo
Morrissey: 95   quotes 29   likes

Morrissey Quotes

“Now I know how Joan of Arc felt,
As the flames rose to her Roman nose
And her Walkman started to melt…”

Morrissey

From the song "Bigmouth Strikes Again"
From songs

“I normally live in Los Angeles, if you can call it normal living.”

Morrissey

From the TV documentary The Importance of Being Morrissey (2003); also quoted in "Return of the lone stranger" by Mark Simpson in Guardian Unlimited (31 May 2003)
In interviews etc., About himself and his work

Angels

“I once bought a Manchester United hat, which I think was 12 shillings, and somebody ran up behind me and pulled it off and just ran ahead. I thought, 'It's a very cruel world, I'm not prepared for this.”

Morrissey

And I decided to get my revenge on society.
from "Stop me if you've heard this one before", interview by Len Brown in NME (2h February 1988)
In interviews etc., About himself and his work

World , Revenge , Thinking

“M: I don't have relationships at all. It's out of the question.
NK: Why?
M: Partly because I was always attracted to men or women who were never attracted to me. And I was never attracted to women or men who were attracted to me. So that's the problem. I've never met the right person.”

Morrissey

From "The deep end", interview by Nick Kent, The Face (March 1990).
In interviews etc., About love

Women , Men , Question , Problem

“I never enjoyed life in my twenties, not one minute of it. It was a test of endurance that I'm surprised I survived. Professionally, of course, I was doing very well but personally it couldn't have been worse or more difficult for me if I'd been living in a mud hut in Leeds.”

Morrissey

from an interview with Q magazine (1995)
In interviews etc., About himself and his work

Life , Personality

“I decree today that life is simply taking and not giving,
England is mine and it owes me a living”

Morrissey

from the song "Still Ill"
From songs

Life

“JU: Are you thin still?
M: Um, in a crowd, yes. In a crowd of very heavy people.”

Morrissey

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

People

“I'm bereft of spiritual solutions. I do believe that there has to be a better world, but that's rather simple. I'm quite obsessed with death. I've gone through periods of intense envy for people who've died. Yes, I have a dramatic unswayable unavoidable obsession with death. I can remember being obsessed with it from the age of eight and I often wondered whether it was quite a natural inbuilt emotion for people who're destined to take their own lives, that they recognise it and begin to study it. If there was a magical beautiful pill that one could take that would retire you from this world, I think I would take it and I suppose that's the extremity of the obsessiveness.”

Morrissey

from "Stop me if you've heard this one before", interview by Len Brown in NME (20 February 1988)
In interviews etc., About life and death

Death , People , Age , World

“It's hard to be a man. It's made to be hard and I don't know why. I think it's easier to be a woman. The women's movement has been so successful; the men's movement has never been accepted. I think it's not wanted. I think the expectation that men be stoic and strong is so enormous that finally they decide that this is the attractive way to be. There's more to life than being macho - such an ugly word - which is something that I realized at the age of one.”

Morrissey

from "Homme alone" by David Keeps, Details (December 1992)
In interviews etc., About gender

Life , Women , Men , Age

“Last night I dreamt
That somebody loved me
No hope, no harm
Just another false alarm
Last night I felt
Real arms around me
No hope, no harm
Just another false alarm
So, tell me how long
Before the last one?
And tell me how long
Before the right one?
The story is old - I know
But it goes on
The story is old - I know
But it goes on
Oh, goes on
And on
Oh, goes on
And on”

Morrissey

From the 1987 song "Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me"
From songs

Love , Hope , Falseness , Night

“I think I'm a realist. Which people who don't like me consider to be pessimism. It isn't pessimism at all. If I was a pessimist I wouldn't get up, I wouldn't shave, I wouldn't watch Batman at 7:30 a. m. Pessimists just don't do that sort of thing.”

Morrissey

In interviews etc., About himself and his work
Source: from "Stop me if you've heard this one before", interview by Len Brown in NME (20 February 1988)

People , Thinking

“Cleavage Sister: "What do you feel about erotic art?"
Morrissey:"I don't know much about rotting art?"
Cleavage Sister: "What about erotic music?"
Morrissey:"I know a great deal about rotting music."”

Morrissey

Interview at a concert (RPLA - whose singer James Maker is a friend of Morrisseys)
About the Notre Dame fire, Odds & Ends

Art , Music , Feeling , Sister

“I listen to the radio now that we seem to be on it quite a lot, but before that, I didn't really listen a great deal. I gave up for a while. But other groups… without really trying to sound terribly down on modern music, much of it really doesn't affect me a great deal. It seems tragically tidy, and everybody has their little safety nets and their little life rafts, and once people seem to get a hit they seem to just dilute the formula constantly and there's no risk involved, and it's really so desperately tidy, that… I want to change things. But I don't want to imply that The Smiths are a high-risk situation anyway, of course they're not. They're immediately listenable. But it just needs somebody with some heart and some brain. I think popular music needs brains at the moment.”

Morrissey

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

Life , People , Music , Thinking

“It was probably nothing, but it felt like the world.”

Morrissey

Autobiography

World

“PM: What annoys you most about yourself?
M: Practically everything. I miss not being able to stand up straight. I tend to slide into rooms and sit on the chair behind the door.”

Morrissey

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

“MS: Have you ever turned to religion?
M: At no time. I am a seriously lapsed Catholic. It was at the usual time, 10, 11, 12, after being forced to go to church and never understanding why and never enjoying it, seeing so many negative things, and realising it somehow wasn't for me. I can only have faith in things I see. I could never be converted to Buddhism.”

Morrissey

From The soft touch", interview by Mat Snow, Q (December 1989)
In interviews etc., About life and death

Faith , Religion , Understanding , Time

“TW: I must ask you, what right does the fact that you are a popular and successful popstar give you to comment on political and…
M: Well, I feel that, if popular singers don’t say these things, who does? We can’t have any faith in playwrights any more, we can’t have any faith in filmstars, young people don’t care about those things, they’re dying arts. And if you say, what ‘right’ do you have, the implication there to me is that popular music is quite a low art, it should be hidden, it can be there but let’s not say anything terribly important, let’s just make disco records or whatever. So I really feel that we do have an obligation and I know that people respect it and they want it and it’s working to great effect.”

Morrissey

from "Granada Reports", interview by Tony Wilson, Granada TV February 1985
In interviews etc., About politics and society

People , Faith , Art , Music

“GQ: “Who’ll be the first of the Smiths to die?”
M: “Me. I’ll be shot – probably by one of the ex-Smiths.””

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

“Hello you little charmers… We're The Smiths…”

Morrissey

The Smiths, live at the Hacienda (1983)
In Concert

“You either approve of violence or you don't, and nothing on earth is more violent or extreme than the meat industry.”

Morrissey

Autobiography

“That’s the key to modern Britain … only the mentally castrated are eligible for praise and awards. It’s against the law to be intelligent! The dumb have inherited the earth. Because of this, British arts are controlled by completely limited possibilities, and the same faces appear everywhere.”

Morrissey

CULTURE Pop Icon Morrissey Says Diversity is Not a Strength https://summit.news/2019/06/24/pop-icon-morrissey-says-diversity-is-not-a-strength/?fbclid=IwAR398wYgRpEduvLPMg8qiO9WQNVnZl3LaNydJ8Bx1-DTF33ahE2rVTHFKuE, June 24 2019
In interviews etc., About politics and society

Appearance , Intelligence , Law , Art

“I wear black on the outside
'Cause black is how I feel on the inside.”

Morrissey

From the 1987 song Unloveable, co-written with Johnny Marr.
From songs

Feeling

“I didn’t vote in the referendum [Brexit] although I can see how there is absolutely nothing attractive about the EU. My view has always been that the result of the referendum must be carried through. If the vote had been remain there would be absolutely no question that we would remain. In the interest of true democracy, you cannot argue against the wish of the people. Without the people, nobody in high office gets paid.”

Morrissey

CULTURE Pop Icon Morrissey Says Diversity is Not a Strength https://summit.news/2019/06/24/pop-icon-morrissey-says-diversity-is-not-a-strength/?fbclid=IwAR398wYgRpEduvLPMg8qiO9WQNVnZl3LaNydJ8Bx1-DTF33ahE2rVTHFKuE, June 24 2019
In interviews etc., About politics and society

Democracy , People , Question

“I don't recognise such terms as heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, and I think it's important that there's someone in pop music who's like that. These words do a great deal of damage, they confuse people and they make people feel unhappy, so I want to do away with them.”

Morrissey

Source: [239, The Queer Encyclopedia of Music, Dance, and Musical Theater, Claude Summers, Cleis Press Start, 1 November 2004, 9781573448758] In interviews etc., Sexuality

People , Music , Thinking , Feeling