Punk quotes
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I encourage you to find your punk-rock, your lucha-libre, your pro-wrestling
-- Amy Dumas -
I had moments of my actions and words not reflecting who it is I am - if that defines a punk, then yes, absolutely.
-- Andre Agassi -
I see a lot of connections between folk and punk music just because they're both subcorporate music - I mean, traditionally.
-- Ani DiFranco -
I love punk, I love a lot of British Invasion bands, I love garage bands.
-- Anna Sui -
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When punk really started to happen, it was a reaction against the disco craze of the time.
-- Anna Sui -
He was a punk, she did ballet. What more can I say.
-- Avril Lavigne -
Punk will never be dead to me. It's my life. I can never just drop this lifestyle. It embodies me.
-- Billie Joe Armstrong -
A lot of punk rock is not going to be in the mainstream. It's below the radar. The beauty of it is that you're not supposed to always know. It's subterranean.
-- Billie Joe Armstrong -
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Punk is not just the sound, the music. Punk is a lifestyle.
-- Billie Joe Armstrong -
Were it not for the Clash, punk would have been just a sneer, a safety pin and a pair of bondage trousers.
-- Billy Bragg -
When I met Apple, I made it very clear that I am an old punk and I have never done commercials or been sponsored. And I wasn't after their money.
-- Bjork -
The spirit of punk-cabaret is that you fell that you can truly be all of who you are.
-- Brian Viglione -
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I want to have tampons as merch that say ‘Periods are punk.'
-- Charli XCX -
Teachers didn't like me very much. They thought I was just this punk kid and they always wanted to kick me out.
-- Clea DuVall -
Do ya' feel lucky, punk?
-- Clint Eastwood -
If punk was about getting rid of hippies, then I'm getting rid of grunge.
-- Damon Albarn -
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I was originally like a punker, know what I mean, like the punks are today, I'd spit in a minute.
-- Etta James -
Back to basics Rock & Roll capturing the beauty and simplicity of punk
-- Gary Crowley -
And I used to go the punk clubs such as a gay club in Poland Street that everyone would go to because it was the only place you could go to looking like that without getting beaten senseless.
-- Gary Numan -
I was never really that interested in the punk movement. I was a blues guy: I liked Motown, James Brown.
-- Gary Oldman -
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There are several books out on punk history, but I haven't read any of them. I was there.
-- Greg Ginn -
PUNK IS: the personal expression of uniqueness that comes from the experiences of growing up in touch with our human ability to reason and ask questions.
-- Greg Graffin -
I definitely was attracted to similar things in punk and science. They both depend on a healthy dose of skepticism.
-- Greg Graffin -
I would say there's a lot of similarity between folk and punk. It's written for the common man.
-- Greg Graffin -
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I enjoy punk, the attitude as well as the music, but I don't feel like I have to be a carbon copy of it and invite all this controversy just to be punk rock.
-- Hayley Williams -
Will punk rock ever die? Pal, if you have to ask it's dead to you.
-- Henry Rollins -
I'm still secretly a bit of a punk. Love The Clash and a bit of the Pistols. I guess as I've got older I've chilled out a bit. But, my teenage angst is still stirring somewhere!
-- Iwan Rheon -
C.M. Punk...I think you're a nerd
-- Jeff Hardy -
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Punk is not dead. Punk will only die when corporations can exploit and mass produce it.
-- Jello Biafra -
Punk rock will never die, until something more dangerous replaces it.
-- Jello Biafra -
I was trained as an actress. But I wasn't a very convincing actress, so I started doing punk poetry and then fell into doing stand-up.
-- Jenny Eclair -
The punk scene in NY was so gritty and nihilistic & I was like ooh I want to do that
-- Jessica Hagedorn -
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To me, punk is about being an individual and going against the grain and standing up and saying 'This is who I am'.
-- Joey Ramone -
All punk is is attitude. That's what makes it. The attitude.
-- Joey Ramone -
To me, John Lennon and Elvis Presley were punks, because they made music that evoked those emotions in people.
-- Joey Ramone -
Punk's not dead, it's just at K-Mart.
-- John Rzeznik -
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Punk was over in two years. That was the only damn good thing about it.
-- Julie Burchill -
Rap music is the only vital form of music introduced since punk rock.
-- Kurt Cobain -
I've always thought that gaming and YouTube and the web is a very post-punk extravaganza.
-- Malcolm Mclaren -
A real punk is punk on the inside.
-- Mark Hoppus -
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I liked a lot of alternative and I like punk stuff.
-- Martie Maguire -
Skating is what got me into punk rock.
-- Matt Skiba -
The whole punk ethic was do-it-yourself, and I've always been very literal, especially as a kid. When they said that anybody can do this, I was like, 'OK, that's me.'
-- Michael Stipe -
Punk is just as much a form of folk music as anything is!
-- Michelle Shocked -
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Punk is not really a style of music. It was more like a state of mind.
-- Mike Watt -
Country music is completely punk-rock. It's the original punk-rock.
-- Neko Case -
When punk rock came along, the one thing you were not supposed to be was musical.
-- Nick Lowe -
I used to hang out with a bunch of old punk rockers when I was a little kid.
-- Norman Reedus -
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There are characters in [punk] that do deliberately go as far as they can in certain kind of taboo areas.
-- Richard Hell -
By many peoples' standards, my playing is very primitive but by punk standards, I'm a virtuoso.
-- Robert Quine -
The single best thing that has happened in my lifetime in music, after punk rock, is being able to share music, globally for free,
-- Steve Albini -
Im 36, but I still feel like a punk kid with $200 in my savings account.
-- Steve Aoki -
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I went to UC Berkeley for college, and it was during the period when the whole punk movement was happening.
-- Susanna Hoffs -
It’s always this thing where we’re constantly waiting for something that will come in electronic music that says, ‘Daft Punk sucks!’ That’s actually much more interesting and exciting than someone who is paying homage.
-- Thomas Bangalter -
I listened a little to punk when I was younger, but it was straight edge punk. It was nothing like what is going on now, like poppy punk.
-- Travis Barker -
Punk rock has become another viable art form. It always was. But now it's like everyone's doing it.
-- Tre Cool -
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I never understood why the metal heads in my school hated the punks.
-- Trevor Dunn -
I hate Keanu Reeves. I think he's a punk.
-- Troy Duffy -
I don't think punk fashion is a specter or overemphasized - it made a big impression, as there had never been anything like it before.
-- Vivienne Westwood -
I took Punk to be the detonation of some slow-fused projectile buried deep in society's flank a decade earlier, and I took it to be, somehow, a sign.
-- William Gibson -
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I started making music with my band in the 80s, so I am more product of post punk than classical music, and I have always carried on this way.
-- Yann Tiersen -
I guess I would call my music blues punk. Theres a lot of influences.
-- Benjamin Booker -
I was a total punk. But I was still an outcast, even with the punks and stuff.
-- Chuck Mosley -
What the Sex Pistols made sounded like quality, because they had a big label and top engineers and producers. But punk rock shouldn't be quality; it should be f**king mania. It should be gnarled, a glorious lo-fi live sound.
-- David Vanian -
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I wanted to sound new and exciting - the punk movement was over with for me.
-- Edwyn Collins -
My music doesn't sound punk, but I see it as a punk action.
-- Frankie Cosmos -
To me, the main idea of punk was do-it-yourself, which meant that you could basically do anything that you would wanna do. You don't have to wait to be allowed to do it. Anarchy was more or less about the same thing, so for me they were closely related.
-- G.W. Sok -
What we get in punk these days are layers of 'anti-', and so many of them are so self-serving. It's not about larger freedom.
-- Geoff Rickly -
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I went to a fancy dress party as a punk. I went through a stage of being a wannabe punk from the '70s. So, my next-door neighbours were like hardcore punks and I went to see The Vibrators and came home with a T-shirt that said "The Vibrators". My mum said: "You're not going out in that!" But I was really into it. I did soon grow out of it. But that's probably the most embarrassing story I have. I really am just quite normal.
-- Georgia Groome -
I always expect there to be a new counter-culture coming up, something that would make punk look as ridiculous as punk made the hippies look.
-- Grant Hart -
I don't have any phobias with any language, and I've grown up listening to Anglo-American rock n roll as well as Welsh-language punk rock and I'm all for sharing languages.
-- Gruff Rhys -
I like punks who also like Saxon. I guess I am one.
-- Gylve Nagell -
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Punk music is perfect for me because I'm not, like, a master at any instrument.
-- James Paxton -
In my mind I still qualify as punk, though I know four out of five punks would disagree.
-- John K. Samson -
I listened to lots of other kinds of music, but punk is what allowed me to actually play music.
-- John K. Samson -
I'm more interested than Philip Roth in understanding women, even if I do it imperfectly. But that book, Portnoy's Complaint, is literary punk in this way that is rare.
-- Karan Mahajan -
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The only punk that I really care about and am an expert on is the original punk of 1976 to 1979.
-- Martin Popoff -
I'm more interested in the meanings and the bands that fill up the spaces known as new wave and post punk.
-- Martin Popoff -
Jealous punks can't stop my dunks.
-- Shaquille O'Neal -
I was still doing the punk thing, but also playing in some indie bands, I had a less crazy hairstyle.
-- Tony Palermo -
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In the 70s, what thrash was there? Punk came on, and that was cool. But there was no thrash. There were dinosaur big bands, and that was great. Those were my influences.
-- Al Jourgensen -
I was not a popular girl, so being able to create punk who didn't have to be beautiful in the mainstream way helped me to get in touch with sexuality and become comfortable with the idea that I didn't have to look like Farrah Fawcett to feel attractive, to feel sexual power.
-- Alice Bag -
Punk rock, when I was a part of it, was called 'the underground.' There was something very attractive in all the hidden places, the hidden histories.
-- Mary Harron -
People seem to think that folk music is people with acoustic guitars. Or punk music is people with mohawks, leather jackets.
-- Avey Tare -
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You know there was always a confusion that punk was a style of music.
-- Mike Watt -
I still think punk's around. It's been pushed into the mainstream and it gets harder to draw that line between what's pop and what's punk.
-- Milo Aukerman -
I would be doomed if I didn't invent humor in my life. When I was young, I had all these punk and performance-art bands, dressed in costumes and painting the room and getting kicked out by police. Now when I perform I still feel the stage is more than just where you put your instruments. It's where you can do whatever you feel like.
-- Nils Frahm -
Art talk is punk. Let the movie do your speaking for you.
-- David Denby -
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As I got older, it turned into hardcore punk. I started getting into more aggressive music.
-- David Pajo -
It's hard to imagine the whole punk movement without The Velvet Underground. I toured with them when they did their reunion tour, and no one sounds like that; they are a very unique-sounding band. They have a lot of noise, they have a viola, they have a drummer that's standing up, certainly they have influenced my guitar playing, but hopefully after 12 records you start to sound like yourself.
-- Dean Wareham -
I play really bad punk rock guitar. Age-old friends; it's just great hanging out with your mates, causing havoc.
-- Rhys Ifans -
I’m still secretly a bit of a punk. Love The Clash and a bit of the Pistols. I guess as I’ve got older I’ve chilled out a bit. But, my teenage angst is still stirring somewhere!
-- Iwan Rheon -
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It’s always this thing where we’re constantly waiting for something that will come in electronic music that says, ‘Daft Punk sucks!’ That’s actually much more interesting and exciting than someone who is paying homage.
-- Thomas Bangalter -
I formed a band when I was about 13, and we all listened to punk - or what we thought was punk!
-- Tim Gane -
Everyone should be able to go to a concert and enjoy music, and not feel like they're going to be harassed. That's how I see punk music.
-- Joe Armstrong -
I've always loved punk music, so it was really cool to do my first punk song.
-- Kate Nash -
