Steven Morrissey quotes

I normally live in Los Angeles, if you can call it normal living.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Normal #Los Angeles

I've always done quite well as far as the charts are concerned. And yet I always felt I conveyed the spirit of the music I love, which didn't have any chart success.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Done #Spirit #Wells

I do think it's possible to go through life and never fall in love, or find someone who loves you.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Falling In Love #Love You #Memorable

I think labels for the most part want to sign new discoveries so that that label alone is seen to be responsible for the rise of the artist. Not many labels want bands who have already made their mark, because their success is usually attributed to some other label somewhere else at another time.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Thinking #Artist #Discovery

I've never intended to be controversial but it's very easy to be controversial in pop music because nobody ever is.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Memorable #Controversial #Easy

I am stuck in the dream of an album that sells well not because of marketing, but because people like the songs.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Dream #Song #People

Long hair is an unpardonable offense which should be punishable by death.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Memorable #Hair #Long

The Internet has obviously wiped music off the human map - killed the record shop, and killed the patience of labels who consider debut sales of 300,000 to not be good enough.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Records #Maps #Labels

I do maintain that if your hair is wrong, your entire life is wrong.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Memorable #Hair #Life Is

Pop music has progressed. The singing voice has changed dramatically in pop music, and people now just sing the way they want to, in their speaking voice, instead of putting on some great transatlantic rock and roll sneer.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Rock And Roll #Voice #Rocks

You have to, at least from a distance, look as if you know what you're doing, and I can manage that.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Distance #Looks #Manage

I don't think I've ever made a conscious effort to alter the sound. I don't see the point. I have to remain true to how I sing. I'm perfectly happy with what I am. Whatever that is.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Thinking #Effort #Sound

Artists aren't really people. And I'm actually 40 per cent papier mache.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Artist #People #Cents

The fascinating thing about human beings is that they don't last, and everything eventuates, and everything is very, very brief. And even if you do manage to look reasonably well as you age, unfortunately you are attacked at every level by illness and so forth. It's a fact of life.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Age #Levels #Lasts

You are bound to pick up influences.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Influence

My family, although they're very large on both my parents' sides, they don't know much about their family tree. Occasionally, they try to dig, but they can't get very far, and it's baffling. In Dublin, it seems that so many public records were wiped out; it's proven to be very difficult, so I know very little.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Tree #Parent #Trying

Now I know how Joan of Arc felt.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Arcs

The solo years have been more meaningful to the audiences than the Smiths years, but the press in England only write about me in relation to the Smiths era.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Meaningful #Writing #Years

I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour, but heaven knows I'm miserable now.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Heaven #Miserable #Hours

Popular music is slowly being laid to rest in every conceivable way... the ashes are already about us if we could but notice them.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Way #Ashes #Music Is

Everyday is like Sunday Everyday is silent and grey
-- Steven Morrissey

#Sunday #Everyday #Silent

Shyness is nice, but shyness can stop you from doing all the things in life that you'd like to.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Nice #Shyness

Women don't go to war to kill other women. Wars and armies and nuclear weapons are essentially heterosexual hobbies.
-- Steven Morrissey

#War #Army #Weapons

I don't want to get too involved in marketing budgets, online promotions and download set-ups because it would be a bit like Gertrude Stein mapping out a TV campaign. I want to sing. I want visibility. I am essentially Al Martino, not Seymour Stein.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Marketing #Campaigns #Want

It could be construed that the reason I wouldn't wish to live in England is the immigration explosion. And that's not true at all.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Wish #England #Immigration

I'm capable of looking on the bright side. I just don't do it very often.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Sides #Bright Side #Capable

The fire in the belly is essential, otherwise you become Michael Buble - famous and meaningless.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Fire #Essentials #Fame

Well, I'm a Catholic by birth and you can never shed it.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Catholic #Birth #Wells

What's the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning? Wish I hadn't.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Morning #Memorable #Wish

I think the pop chart today is entirely market-driven. And it has nothing to do with public taste. And it has nothing to do with moving music forward. It's simply a market chart.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Moving #Thinking #Today

Even though I've been reasonably well known for quite a long time, I still can't get a record on daytime radio or on MTV.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Mtv #Long #Records

I began to go to concerts when I was 12 years old.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Years #Concerts

If you travel to Germany, it's still absolutely Germany. If you travel to Sweden, it still has a Swedish identity.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Identity #Germany #Sweden

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.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Determination #Animal #Order

Even with the recent story about the nurse killing herself in King Edward Hospital, there's no blame placed on Kate Middleton, who was in the hospital as far as I could see for absolutely no reason. She feels no shame about the death of this woman, she's saying nothing about the death of this poor woman. The arrogance of the British royals is staggering, absolutely staggering. And why it's allowed to be I really don't know... It wasn't because of two DJs in Australia that this woman took her own life, it was the pressure around her.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Kings #Two #Australia

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

#Earth #Violence #Meat

Singers attract fans with aspects of their own personality. People feel I'm passionate and obsessive. They know this isn't a profession for me, it's a vocation. It's not an egotistical thing, but something else. I'm in a dialogue with my audience, and that's something I need
-- Steven Morrissey

#People #Personality #Fans

It takes strength to be gentle and kind.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Success #Kind #Gentle

He drove me home in the van, complaining, 'Women only like me for my mind'.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Home #Dating #Romance

Animals are nicer than humans and they're conscious beings. If you stick your grandmother in an oven, she will probably be tasty. But is that any reason to eat your grandmother?
-- Steven Morrissey

#Grandmother #Animal #Vegetarianism

Life is a very serious business for the simple reason that nobody dies laughing.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Simple #Laughing #Serious

I wear black on the outside, because black is how I feel on the inside.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Black #Feels

The passing of time and all of its crimes is making me sad again. The passing of time and all of its sickening crimes is making me sad again. But don't forget the songs that made you cry and the songs that saved your life.. Yes, you're older now and you're a clever swine. But they were the only ones who ever stood by you
-- Steven Morrissey

#Song #Clever #Forget

Life is very long, when you're lonely
-- Steven Morrissey

#Lonely #Long #Life Is

There's no blame placed at Kate Middleton, who was in the hospital for, as far as I can see, absolutely no reason . . . She feels no shame about the death of this woman. The arrogance of the British royals is staggering, absolutely staggering.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Arrogance #Royal #Blame

We Hate William and Kate
-- Steven Morrissey

#Hate

Pass the pub that wrecks your body And the church, all they want is your money
-- Steven Morrissey

#Church #Wrecks #Want

I don't want to go on much longer, really. I think that would suggest a lack of imagination. A certain lack of dignity also.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Thinking #Imagination #Want

I didn't really see the British punk movement, if that's what it was, as wildly original, because I had been listening so intently to all the New York music since 1973, really.
-- Steven Morrissey

#New York #Listening #Movement

I hated the royal wedding.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Wedding #Royal #Hated

Letting cats and dogs have litters is tantamount to shooting shelter animals in the head since it kills their chances of adoption. Please do the right thing and spay or neuter your animals.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Dog #Cat #Animal

The sorrow of the IRA Brighton bombing is that Thatcher escaped unscathed.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Sorrow #Ira #Bombing

I wish that Prince Charles had been shot. I think it would have made the world a more interesting place.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Thinking #Interesting #Wish

Bring me the head of Elton John . . . which is one instance in which meat would not be murder, if it were served on a plate.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Meat #Murder #Plates

I smoke 'cos I'm hoping for an early death and I need to cling to something.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Needs #Early Death

I am attracted to humans. But, of course...not many.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Humans

I'm fascinated by people in their eighties and nineties. Especially those who are still creating and living in an interesting way. I am fascinated by them because they have so much to say now that they've lived for so long.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Creating #Interesting #Long

Whether it be Beyonce or Justin Bieber, we see singers who have absolutely nothing to offer anyone as they walk off stage clutching three Grammys in each hand.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Hands #Singers #Three

Any criticism of Thatcher throws a dangerously absurd light on the entire machinery of British politics. Thatcher's name must be protected, not because of all the wrong that she had done, but because the people around her allowed her to do it.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Light #Names #People

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.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Voice #Watches #Needs

I began to go to concerts when I was 12 years old. And I would stand there, the small imp that I was, and I would expect the world to be laid before me by these artists, and in some cases it was. So when I climbed onto the stage, I always imagined that I was singing to somebody who was similar to how I had been.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Artist #Years #Singing

Racism is beyond common sense and has no place in our society.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Racism #Common Sense #Our Society

America is not the world.
-- Steven Morrissey

#America #World

When you're younger, you see the people who are in power and think they must have that position because of some degree of skill. And as you get older, you realize it's not true, that most people in those positions are absolutely inept. And this naturally makes you feel better about yourself.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Feel Better #Thinking #Skills

As a very small child I found recorded noise and the solitary singer beneath the spotlight so dramatic and so brave... walking the plank... willingly... It was sink or swim. The very notion of standing there, alone, I found beautiful.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Beautiful #Children #Brave

Smiths songs certainly have an astonishing afterlife.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Song #Afterlife

Each year of life brings us nearer to our decline, but I will continue to seek a listener until I'm dead in a ditch.
-- Steven Morrissey

#Years #Decline #Years Of Life