Joe Strummer quotes
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“I don't have any other message than don't forget you are alive”
-- Joe Strummer -
“Everyone has got to realise you can't hold onto the past if you want any future. Each second should lead to the next one.”
-- Joe StrummerSource : "Armed Combat". Sounds Magazine Interview, July 17, 1982.
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“If I had five million pounds I'd start a radio station because something needs to be done. It would be nice to turn on the radio and hear something that didn't make you feel like smashing up the kitchen and strangling the cat.”
-- Joe Strummer -
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“People can change anything they want to, and that means everything in the world.”
-- Joe StrummerSource : "Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten". Documentary, Biography, Music, 2007.
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“I'm far more dangerous now, because I don't care at all.”
-- Joe Strummer -
“The way you get a better world is, you don't put up with substandard anything.”
-- Joe StrummerSource : "My Dinner with Strummer". Interview with Earl Chalmers for Rude International, March 1999.
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“It is fun to be alive. It's a hell of a lot better than being dead.”
-- Joe Strummer -
“Authority is supposedly grounded in wisdom, but I could see from a very early age that authority was only a system of control and it didn't have any inherent wisdom. I quickly realised that you either became a power or you were crushed”
-- Joe Strummer -
“Greed, it ain't going anywhere. They should have that in a big billboard across Times Square. Without people you're nothing”
-- Joe Strummer -
“When you're out to get the honey you don't go killing all the bees”
-- Joe Strummer -
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“All hippies around now just represent complete apathy.”
-- Joe Strummer -
“If they can't hear it, they're not supposed to hear it. It's not for them if they can't understand it.”
-- Joe Strummer -
“Anybody who makes speeches written by someone else is just a robot.”
-- Joe Strummer -
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“Nonsmokers should be banned from buying any product a smoker created.”
-- Joe Strummer -
“Don't forget you're alive. 'Cause sometimes when you walk around the city and you're in a bad mood, you can think, hey, wait a minute, we're alive! We don't know what the next second will bring and what a fantastic thing this is. This can get easily forgotten in the routine of life, and that's something I'm trying to bring to my attention at all times. Don't forget you're alive. We're not dead, you know. This is the greatest thing.”
-- Joe Strummer -
“There is a time to dance to techno and a time not to.”
-- Joe Strummer -
“I like to just feel how I feel and not worry about it really.”
-- Joe Strummer -
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“Punk rock isn't something you grow out of Punk rock is an attitude, and the essence of that attitude is 'give us some truth'”
-- Joe Strummer -
“If you ain't thinkin about man and God and law, then you ain't thinkin about nothin'.”
-- Joe Strummer -
“You have the right not to be killed, unless it was done by a policeman or an aristocrat.”
-- Joe Strummer -
“For me the music is a vehicle for my lyrics. It's a chance to get some really good words across.”
-- Joe Strummer -
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“I want to grow up with my audience. I don't expect to be getting through to the younger pop crowd. I learned that from Paul Simon.”
-- Joe Strummer -
“I think we're going to have to forget about the radio and just go back to word of mouth.”
-- Joe Strummer -
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“I hate it when I go out and I see parents going, 'don't do that', or 'stop doing that' when some kid's just hanging off a staircase or something. There's too much of this, 'don't do that'. The whole thing baffles me.”
-- Joe Strummer -
“We aren't particularly talented. We try harder!”
-- Joe Strummer -
“The only place I considered home was the boarding school, in Yorkshire, my parents sent me to.”
-- Joe Strummer -
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“Yeah, all those things, responsibility, pressure. It's a bit stressful. I try and come to terms with it by not thinking about it.”
-- Joe Strummer -
“When you blame yourself, you learn from it. If you blame someone else, you don't learn nothing, cause hey, it's not your fault, it's his fault, over there.”
-- Joe StrummerSource : Interview with Judy McGuire, Punk Magazine, www.punkmagazine.com. 2001.
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“There isn't a town in the world I haven't run amok in.”
-- Joe Strummer -
“I learnt that fame is an illusion and everything about it is just a joke. I'm far more dangerous now, because I don't care at all.”
-- Joe Strummer -
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“I like to read because it's the opposite of being on the go. Reading is the perfect antidote.”
-- Joe Strummer -
“My motto is, 'What's the hurry?' I'm trying to get it across to the modern world that we need to sit around and think a little bit more.”
-- Joe StrummerSource : Interview with Corey Levitan, Rolling Stone Online, December 02, 1999.
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“We`re all going to have to learn to live together and develop a greater tolerance and get rid off whatever our fathers gave us in the way of hatred between nations.”
-- Joe Strummer -
“All the power's in the hands of people rich enough to buy it.”
-- Joe StrummerSource : "Song: 'White Riot' ('The Clash')". 1977.
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“I began thinking there should be an American phrase book, 'cause I've got an Italian phrase book, and an Arabic one... now a British one. I think it'd be pretty good to have an American phrase book.”
-- Joe Strummer -
“With The Simpsons you can go back to work with a keen heart.”
-- Joe Strummer -
“I'd like to say that people . . . people can change anything they want to. And that means everything in the world. Show me any country . . . and there'll be people in it just trying to take their humanity back into the center of the ring . . . . And follow that for a time. Y'know, think on that. Without people you're nothing.”
-- Joe Strummer -
“I`m kind of like one of those people that picks up small and interesting bits of wood and doesn`t want to let go of them. Or, you know, I`m fascinated with the wrapper on a sardine can. A little cuckoo.”
-- Joe Strummer -
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“The toughest thing is facing yourself. Being honest with yourself, that's much tougher than beating someone up. That's what I call tough.”
-- Joe StrummerSource : "1988: The New Wave Punk Rock Explosion". Book by Caroline Coon, 1977.
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“I have a weird life because I live on songwriting royalties, which are a strange income. Sometimes it rains, sometimes it doesn't.”
-- Joe Strummer -
“I have a weird life because I live on songwriting royalties, which are a strange income. Sometimes it rains, sometimes it doesn't. ... I want to grow up with my audience. I don't expect to be getting through to the younger pop crowd. I learned that from Paul Simon. ... When you blame yourself, you learn from it. If you blame someone else, you don't learn nothing, cause hey, it's not your fault, it's his fault, over there. ... People have told me songs I've written have changed their life. That's remarkable. That keeps your faith.”
-- Joe Strummer -
“I don't want to look back. I want to keep going forward, I still have something to say to people.”
-- Joe Strummer -
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“When I started, they told me I only needed 3 chords and the truth... It turned out I could manage with 2 and some vague ideas.”
-- Joe Strummer
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