Quotes about pop
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Tom Petty photo
L. Ron Hubbard photo

“I'm drinking lots of rum and popping pinks and greys.”

L. Ron Hubbard (1911–1986) American science fiction author, philosopher, cult leader, and the founder of the Church of Scientology

Letter to his wife (1967) as quoted in L. Ron Hubbard: Messiah or Madman? (1989) by Bent Corydon and L. Ron Hubbard, Jr (Ronald DeWolfe).

David Fleming photo

“At present, we have a policy-response shaped by sophisticated climate science, brilliant technology and pop behaviourism, based on simple assumptions about carrot-and-stick incentives.”

David Fleming (1940–2010) British activist

All Party Parliamentary report into TEQs, p. 22 http://www.teqs.net/report/APPGOPO_TEQs.pdf

Glenn Beck photo

“If you go to Cass Sunstein, what net neutrality means is now if you go to FoxNews. com, you will have Arianna Huffington, a little box pop up with her showing that "Bill O'Reilly is wrong on this" or "here's an opposing view of Bill O'Reilly."”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

2010-12-2
The Glenn Beck Program
Premiere Radio Network
http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/196/48783/
2010s, 2010

Ken Ham photo
George Harrison photo

“Rap music is just computerised crap. I listen to Top of the Pops and after three songs I feel like killing someone.”

George Harrison (1943–2001) British musician, former member of the Beatles

Quoted in The Beatles — After the Break-up : In Their Own Words (1991) by David Bennahum, p. 54

Dana Gioia photo
P.G. Wodehouse photo
K. Barry Sharpless photo
James K. Morrow photo
Firuz Shah Tughlaq photo
Robin Williams photo
Allen Ginsberg photo

“I could issue manifestos summoning seraphim to revolt against the Haavenly State we're in, or trumpets to summon American mankind to rebellion against the Authority which has frozen all skulls in the cold war, That is, I could, make sense, invoke politics and try organize a union of opinion about what to do to Cuba, China, Russia, Bolivia, New Jersey, etc. However since in America the folks are convinced their heaven is all right, those manifestos make no dent except in giving authority & courage to the small band of hipsters who are disaffected like gentle socialists. Meanwhile the masses the proletariat the people are smug and the source of the great Wrong. So the means then is to communicate to the grand majority- and say I or anybody did write a balanced documented account not only of the lives of America but the basic theoretical split from the human body as Reich has done- But the people are so entrenched in their present livelihood that all the facts in the world-such as that China will be 1/4 of world pop makes no impression at all as a national political fact that intelligent people can take counsel on and deal with humorously & with magnificence. So that my task as a politician is to dynamite the emotional rockbed of inertia and spiritual deadness that hangs over the cities and makes everybody unconsciously afraid of the cops- To enter the Soul on a personal level and shake the emotion with the Image of some giant reality-of any kind however irrelevant to transient political issue- to touch & wake the soul again- That soul which is asleep or hidden in armor or unable to manifest itself as free life of God on earth- To remind by chord of deep groan of the Unknown to most Soul- then further politics will take place when people seize power over their universe and end the long dependence on an external authority or rhetorical set sociable emotions-so fixed they don't admit basic personal life changes-like not being afraid of jails and penury, while wandering thru gardens in high civilization.”

Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) American poet

Gordon Ball (1977), Journals: Early Fifties Early Sixties, Grove Press NY
Journals: Early Fifties Early Sixties

Paul Krugman photo
Clive Staples Lewis photo

“It foretells a sudden, violent end imposed from without; an extinguisher popped onto the candle, a brick flung at the gramophone, a curtain rung down on the play — "Halt!"”

Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963) Christian apologist, novelist, and Medievalist

The World's Last Night (1952)
Context: Christian Apocalyptic offers us no such hope. It does not even foretell, (which would be more tolerable to our habits of thought) a gradual decay. It foretells a sudden, violent end imposed from without; an extinguisher popped onto the candle, a brick flung at the gramophone, a curtain rung down on the play — "Halt!"

Ellen Willis photo

“Classical sex is romantic, profound, serious, emotional, moral, mysterious, spontaneous, abandoned, focused on a particular person, and stereotypically feminine. Baroque sex is pop, playful, funny, experimental, conscious, deliberate, amoral, anonymous, focused on sensation for sensation's sake, and stereotypically masculine.”

Ellen Willis (1941–2006) writer, activist

"Classical and Baroque Sex in Everyday Life" (1979), Beginning To See the Light: Pieces of a Decade (1981)
Context: There are two kinds of sex, classical and baroque. Classical sex is romantic, profound, serious, emotional, moral, mysterious, spontaneous, abandoned, focused on a particular person, and stereotypically feminine. Baroque sex is pop, playful, funny, experimental, conscious, deliberate, amoral, anonymous, focused on sensation for sensation's sake, and stereotypically masculine. The classical mentality taken to an extreme is sentimental and finally puritanical; the baroque mentality taken to an extreme is pornographic and finally obscene. Ideally, a sexual relation ought to create a satisfying tension between the two modes (a baroque idea, particularly if the tension is ironic) or else blend them so well that the distinction disappears (a classical aspiration).

“If corn circles came from enlightened aliens,
Rather than Wiltshire pranksters on cider.
If channellers could speak in hieroglyphics,
Instead of pop-psychological twaddle.
If sharing, caring, non-sexist men,
Could do anything useful in a crisis.”

Peter J. Carroll (1953) British occultist

Source: PsyberMagick (1995), p. 65
Context: New Age-ism
I could Love it: —
If dolphins had as much intelligence as cats,
And stopped trying to rescue sinking pieces of wood.
If crystals actually did something useful,
Other than grease the wheels of commerce.
If the Goddess had made animals taste less good,
So I didn't want to eat them.
If astrology could tell me anything,
Other than the trite and obvious.
If whales could do something more impressive,
Than merely occupy a lot of space.
If corn circles came from enlightened aliens,
Rather than Wiltshire pranksters on cider.
If channellers could speak in hieroglyphics,
Instead of pop-psychological twaddle.
If sharing, caring, non-sexist men,
Could do anything useful in a crisis.

“Find your identity by actually looking for the things in life that appeal to you or stir emotion in you. If you just let your government, your local imam, even your local pop singer or nasheed singer, define what you should be, you will never be more than that. Look in the mirror and ask yourself, ‘Who do I WANT to be?’ Start there.”

Dawud Wharnsby (1972) Canadian musician

Beating the drums of hope and faith (2004)
Context: Start small, put down the book you’re reading and sit with your grandmother to learn her language and find out about her life’s struggles and her history, before she passes on and your history is lost; put down the TV remote control and stop letting pop culture define who you are and go for a walk through your hometown’s historical landmarks. Find your identity by actually looking for the things in life that appeal to you or stir emotion in you. If you just let your government, your local imam, even your local pop singer or nasheed singer, define what you should be, you will never be more than that. Look in the mirror and ask yourself, ‘Who do I WANT to be?’ Start there.

Donovan photo

“The most important of my achievements, if you want to call them that, was that I successfully introduced mystical ideas into pop culture”

Donovan (1946) Scottish singer, songwriter and guitarist

Grip interview (1997)
Context: The most important of my achievements, if you want to call them that, was that I successfully introduced mystical ideas into pop culture, which was my obsession and my compulsion when I was 16 years old. So, behind all of this fame and fortune, there was a seeker, on a spiritual path — a young man who wanted to discover and share with others an alternative way of looking at the world. I wanted to save our culture from the stupidity and the bigotry and the ignorance that threatened it. And there was the Buddhist way, and the Celtic way.

Jefferson Davis photo

“Think of the President drinking imported liquors while his soldiers were living on pop-corn and water!”

Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) President of the Confederate States of America

David D. Porter, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War https://ia802604.us.archive.org/9/items/incidentsanecdot00port/incidentsanecdot00port.pdf (1885), p. 274.
Context: It looked queer to me to see boxes labeled 'His Excellency, Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America'. The packages so labeled contained Bass ale or Cognac brandy, which cost 'His Excellency' less than we Yankees had to pay for it. Think of the President drinking imported liquors while his soldiers were living on pop-corn and water!

John Williams photo
P. J. O'Rourke photo

“I was like a sex slave to this man. I could make love for forty-eight hours, forty-eight hours, without getting tired. But the minute he left me alone, I felt so empty and lost that I would start popping pills.”

Edie Sedgwick (1943–1971) Socialite, actress, model

Edie describing a low point in her relationship with Bob Neuwirth
Edie : American Girl (1982)
Context: It was really sad - Bobby's and my affair. The only true, passionate, and lasting love scene, and I practically ended up in the psychopathic ward. I had really learned about sex from him, making love, loving, giving. It just completely blew my mind - it drove me a little insane. I was like a sex slave to this man. I could make love for forty-eight hours, forty-eight hours, without getting tired. But the minute he left me alone, I felt so empty and lost that I would start popping pills. He had more or less quit using drugs... When I first knew him, a friend of his used to come up with him to my apartment and they'd do a number in the bathroom. This guy eventually died of a heroin overdose, and Bobby left drugs alone after that. But if I wasn't practically in the act of lovemaking, I would be thinking of how to get hold of drugs. I really loved this man.... What happened was that Bobby said, "Let's go to a party. They're making an underground movie," and he said that I, the Warhol heiress, queen, star, socialite, blah, should be there. Bobby really wanted to go. I had a bad scene with him. I pulled out a knife and I wasn't going to let him out the door until he made love to me. I always get really dreadful. But we finally went. I went through it all. I was furious - this after about two years of our continuing relationship. Finally I said, "Now I'm going to leave this party. I'm fed up." He said that was all right: he'd met all the people he wanted to meet, and he'd watched the film begin shot. So we got into my limousine and he said, "Where would you like to eat?" I thought I was going to explode. Where would I like to eat? I screeched at him, "Why the hell can't you make up your own mind where we're going to eat? Why do I have to make all the decisions?" I was just livid, out of hand. I got madder and madder as we drove along, and just as we drove by the Chelsea Hotel I did something. I've never done anything to hurt anyone, and yet I was so furious that I pressed the button and rolled down the window screen - the glass plate between the front and back seats - and I told the chauffeur that the man in the back was molesting me; he was a junkie! I was so horrified by what I'd said, so flipped out by that, that I jumped out of the car into the path of the oncoming traffic, certain that my head would be crushed. All that happened was the I got bruised, badly bruised, but no broken bones. I mean, I was conscious, not destroyed at all. But I'd done such a terrible thing! I couldn't reconcile that. I had been about to explode. The hotel people came out, and they and Bobby carried me in. I had to pretend I was unconscious because I couldn't comprehend the fact that I had tried to get him busted, to hurt him seriously. He was the only person I had ever gotten violent about. I take out whatever violence comes into my system much more heavily on myself than on anyone else. But that was a pretty tight squeeze. I really craved making love to him.

“To see brown bodies in this environment was exciting to me…Rural upstate New York could be anywhere in middle America…The parents being from Brooklyn, and Pop having Puerto Rican heritage, and the mom being white, makes it a quintessential American story.”

Raúl Castillo (1977) American actor, writer

On his role in the film We the Animals in “After ‘Looking’ and ‘We the Animals,’ Raul Castillo Is Ready to Be a Movie Star” https://www.indiewire.com/2019/01/raul-castillo-interview-we-the-animals-looking-1202029967/ in IndieWire (2019 Jan 2)

Charles Stross photo

“Almost everything in the pop culture lexicon of vampirism is basically fiction—and fiction is the art of telling entertaining lies for money.”

Source: The Laundry Files, The Rhesus Chart (2014), Chapter 9, “Committee Processes” (p. 159)

Nnedi Okorafor photo
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex photo
Elizabeth Warren photo
Rufus Wainwright photo

“Rufus is extraordinary, so musically gifted in many diverse fields. He is a prince in shining armour, a true star in these days of dull and boring, pissy little pop stars.”

Rufus Wainwright (1973) American-Canadian singer-songwriter and composer

Gavin Friday, [July 16, 2012, http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/everybody-loves-rufus-3168433.html, everybody loves rufus]

Miley Cyrus photo

“Her voice is surprisingly rich for a girl in her early teens, and she has more personality than many pop starlets her age, especially those in the Disney stable.”

Miley Cyrus (1992) American actor and singer-songwriter

Heather Phares of allmusic http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:kzdgyl5nxp9b

Flea (musician) photo
Lil Wayne photo

“I’m strapped at home, strapped when I travel I pop my trunk and make these bitches spread like cattle.”

Lil Wayne (1982) American rapper, singer, record executive and businessman

King Kong
Official Mix tapes, Da Drought 3 (2007)

Wendell Berry photo
Johannes Grenzfurthner photo

“After the Soviet Union turned into many, many little non-Soviet countries... it was crazy. It was like a lot of pop-ups on Firefox, and you try to click them away, but it doesn't work!”

Johannes Grenzfurthner (1975) Austrian artist, writer, curator, and theatre and film director

73rd Communique of the CPSUZoeD https://www.derstandard.at/jetzt/livebericht/2000116238563/
Quotes as Nikita P. Chrusov

Ennio Morricone photo
Aldous Huxley photo

“I'm interested in truth, I like science. But truth's a menace, science is a public danger. As dangerous as it's been beneficent. … It's curious … to read what people in the time of Our Ford used to write about scientific progress. They seemed to imagine that it could go on indefinitely, regardless of everything else. Knowledge was the highest good, truth the supreme value; all the rest was secondary and subordinate. True, ideas were beginning to change even then. Our Ford himself did a great deal to shift the emphasise from truth and beauty to comfort and happiness. Mass production demanded the shift. Universal happiness keeps the wheels steadily turning; truth and beauty can't. And, of course, whenever the masses seized political power, then it was happiness rather than truth and beauty that mattered. Still, in spite of everything, unrestricted scientific resarch was still permitted. People still went on talking about truth and beauty as though they were sovereign goods. Right up to the time of the Nine Years' War. That made them change their tune all right. What's the point of truth or beauty or knowledge when the anthrax bombs are popping all around you? That was when science first began to be controlled — after the Nine Years' War. People were ready to have even their appetites controlled then. Anything for a quiet life. We've gone on controlling ever since. It hasn't been very good for truth, of course. But it's been very good for happiness. One can't have something for nothing. Happiness has got to be paid for.”

Source: Brave New World (1932), Mustapha Mond, in Ch. 16

Carolina la O photo
Robert Smith (musician) photo
Pierre Bouvier photo
Ali Wong photo

“I think [if you] consume mainstream pop culture and don’t activate a search for any other niche outlets then you can fall into this feeling that you are inferior.”

Ali Wong (1982) American actress, comedian, and writer

On how Asian-Americans might circumvent the feeling of being underrepresented in mainstream culture in in “'God, I was disgusting!' – Ali Wong on why women's bodies are the last taboo” https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2019/oct/17/god-i-was-disgusting-ali-wong-on-why-womens-bodies-are-the-last-taboo in The Guardian (2019 Oct 17)

Robert A. Heinlein photo
Massin Akandouch photo

“Pop culture is our greatest way to liberation.”

Massin Akandouch (2001) Amazigh activist

September 29, 2019. Massinissa Akandouch's's Twitter account, pinned Tweet. https://twitter.com/MAS8IN/status/1178285515210215424

Dan Hartman photo

“It seemed to be a natural period when I wanted to stop doing pop records; it came with a falling-out between my record company and me...There was a hole in my career. Instead of a valley, it became a peak to me. I decided I was going to do something that I hadn’t really had time to do.”

Dan Hartman (1950–1994) American singer, songwriter, guitarist, keyboardist, record producer

Source: On the career fugue that led him to create the album New Green Clear Blue in “Dan Hartman Manages to Turn a Career Valley into Peak” https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=943&dat=19890307&id=gGkLAAAAIBAJ&sjid=OlMDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6768,567004&hl=en in Mohave Daily Miner (1989 Mar 7)

Morrissey photo

“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 (1959) English singer

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

Chetan Bhagat photo
Louis Armstrong photo
Jaromír Jágr photo