I’m not great at dealing with death, I have to say. I find death very hard: my mum, my dad, Sid Vicious. I’m not a monster; I feel it and it scares me. One death at a time, please, is all my heart will bear. – John Lydon
As a young concert-going person, I was never enamoured with celebrities who would walk out to feature in certain songs and then walk off. – John Lydon
My way of thinking as I approach any human being on this planet is, ‘What are you doing now?’ That’s what interests me. I don’t come at anybody with a whole bunch of assumptions. – John Lydon
I’ve been in very many situations where I’ve not liked the other members of the band or they have not liked me. I grew up presuming that’s the way music was made. It doesn’t need to be that way. It’s taken me years years to find that out. – John Lydon
I wanted to wear the most impenetrable suit of armour ever known to mankind. ‘Hello, Mr. Rotten…’ You can’t say anything about me. You can’t put me down in any way shape or form – I’m rotten to the core… you know, what’s left for you? Pleasantries? I suppose the worst insult you could sling my way is ‘Oh, he’s really nice, him.’ – John Lydon
I hate the technological rip-offs that pass for music formats these days, and go back to vinyl to hear a good record because the sound is always so much fuller. I don’t even like listening to music in the car. – John Lydon
All the things that you would have thought would have made me a professional A1 criminal… wrong. I decided that was too lazy and easy, and because of the way British society is, quite frankly you were denied an education, so I got one of my own. – John Lydon
I keep falling off the edge of the stage because I can’t see it. I can’t see my wrinkles in the mirror either, though. – John Lydon
I’m sort of of the belief that people kill themselves from the inside out. When they’re unhappy with what they’re doing, or not achieving things – when your focus is off-kilter. The thing that keeps me ticking is my values. And I maintain them, because they’re worthy. I like to wake up and feel I’ve done no wrong. I like that feeling. – John Lydon
I’ve had great pleasure meeting the likes of Newt Gingrich and having a chat with the fellow on a staircase. I found him completely dishonest and totally likeable, because he doesn’t care! He knows what a politician is, and he’s a perfect embodiment of one. – John Lydon
If you were to look back at me as a school kid you’d see a very quiet little church mouse kind of character. – John Lydon
The only good political movement I’ve seen lately was Occupy Wall Street. They had no leaders, which was genius. But unfortunately it always ends up with some hippy playing a flute. – John Lydon
I was a very sickly boy when I was young; nearly died when I was 7. I had a life-threatening attack of meningitis, and that put me in a coma for a few months. It took me four years to get my memory back. – John Lydon
I have one major problem with the internet: It’s full of liars. There doesn’t seem to be any way to answer to people lying about you. – John Lydon
The record companies fell apart – quite deservedly. Their corrupting, all-binding contract nonsense had to stop. – John Lydon
Me, as a human, I never want to take away another human being’s choices or lifestyles or anything. – John Lydon
I’ve turned arrogance into an artform, where it’s so absurd that it becomes comedy. But I’ve never done anything to hurt anybody or steal from anyone. – John Lydon
Punk was never about one particular clean-cut imagery… it’s about many, many individuals coming very loosely together. – John Lydon
Words cannot express quite a lot of feelings, whereas a noise or tone or drone or sound, an accordion falling down a staircase, can somehow capture an emotion much better. – John Lydon
