John Lydon

“Obama's dense as a doorbell; not much going on up there - it's a wooden top.”

“I've always despised the hippies.”

“Pop music I have always loved best. But the more extreme, fascist-led examples of the music business I tend to detest the most.”

“People should never allow themselves to be dictated to by media.”

“You know, I've been to some superstars' houses, and I've been really disgusted when I see their platinum discs hanging in the toilet. They're just there on the walls glaring at you when you'...”

“I always find the mirror in the dressing room is where the best artists are.”

“Dummy Dum Dum was my nickname for years at school. I was the strange one of the family, the one who couldn't remember his name.”

“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.”

“I don't release records to be anything but enjoyable.”

“These days young kids don't have any place to form an epic adventure. It's more often in front of the TV screen or a laptop. That's very hard on them. They're being taught daily unsocial ski...”

“We need wealthy dogs off the seats of power. They're taking us back to feudalism and I really don't want that. But I'm very far from being a socialist.”

“When you come from desperate poverty, and that's exactly what I come from, you know that nonsenses are not to be tolerated. I'm not sure who gains from chaos, but I know it's not the poor fo...”

“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.”

“I mean, the genuine roots of culture is folk music.”

“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 t...”

“Americans being upright and forthright and honest and true to themselves is a very hard concept.”

“I've never told anyone this. But I suffer from terrible stage fright. True. You can't tell though, can you? Unbelievable, the panic. I nearly die of fear before I go on stage. Something wick...”

“It's volatile, the marriage. Which one isn't? Nothing better than a good, full-on row. Get it all out. Say rude and nasty things. And then be sorry. Genuinely sorry, afterwards.”

“I cannot comprehend fundamentalism. It's fundamentally wrong.”

“I think there's something basically wrong with the general public that they do need their icons.”