Top 180 John Lydon Quotes (2025 Update)
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151. “Anyone who’s parading under a $100,00-plus video is not free from corporate. That’s just the MTV advertising agency. I find them all to be just a bit of a sham.”

— John Lydon

152. “I think national pride leads to nothing but wars and hate.”

— John Lydon

153. “I could never be a member of a single party. I want the best of all worlds, thank you.”

— John Lydon

154. “I find Lady Gaga hilarious. And I kind of like her. My heart’s warmed to her.”

— John Lydon

155. “I’d rather give up my ears than my eyes, which might sound unusual for a musician.”

— John Lydon

156. “You need the past as a guideline. The history of music is a good basis, but to escape that stuff, that tortuous rulebook, you have to learn it first. It’s kind of like religion – once you’ve written the Bible, that’s it, move on.”

— John Lydon

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

— John Lydon

158. “The day I run out of ideas is the day I stop making records.”

— John Lydon

159. “I love American ski resorts because they’re open to everyone, are not incredibly expensive. They’re not snobby and you can have fun all day long on the most excellent mountains.”

— John Lydon

160. “Art should be life. It’s an imitation of life. It should have some humanity in it.”

— John Lydon

161. “I have a sensible set of values that tell me to never lie.”

— John Lydon

162. “I applaud the effort it takes to put a record together.”

— John Lydon

163. “Me, as a human, I never want to take away another human being’s choices or lifestyles or anything.”

— John Lydon

164. “For me, the best rock is not what you play – it’s what you’re not playing.”

— John Lydon

165. “My reputation is a media creation.”

— John Lydon

166. “The record companies fell apart – quite deservedly. Their corrupting, all-binding contract nonsense had to stop.”

— John Lydon

167. “I love discordancy. It makes people ill at ease and wakes up a part of their brain that’s normally asleep.”

— John Lydon

168. “Over the years, during television interviews, whenever the host or the reviewer or whoever gets cynical and nasty with me, I will behave accordingly. I will defend myself.”

— John Lydon

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

— John Lydon

170. “Some song ideas absolutely require a kind of rigid discipline, and others require absolute chaotic abandon. The form is only valid if you know how to un-form it. I don’t mean to sound like an intellectual here!”

— John Lydon

171. “I’ve created several musical trends, really. That’s not because I’m so far out and fabulous. It’s because most bands have no ideas of their own. They’re so desperate they’ll grab at any old straw.”

— John Lydon

172. “Do what I want, be honest to myself and then it would do good for others, that’s all, full on.”

— John Lydon

173. “There’s many, many ways to write a song. But generally, sitting down at a table and writing is not one of them.”

— John Lydon

174. “Every single lyric I’ve ever written I meant.”

— John Lydon

175. “I love being alive so much. When you come out of comas in your childhood, every moment awake is a joyous occasion.”

— John Lydon

176. “I’m not going to pontificate and tell you to execute your government at dawn, but it wouldn’t be a bad idea.”

— John Lydon

177. “If the Royal Family was going to assassinate someone, they would have gotten rid of me a long time ago.”

— John Lydon

178. “The sounds of anger are not melodic.”

— John Lydon

179. “I like America’s diversity and its landscapes.”

— John Lydon

180. “Within a year or two, however, a couple of the first things I wrote – ‘Anarchy In The UK’ and ‘God Save The Queen’ – really hit their target. I’d like to thank the British public library system: that was my training ground, that’s where I learned to throw those verbal grenades. I wasn’t just throwing bricks through shop windows as a voice of rebellion, I was throwing words where they really mattered. Words count.”

— John Lydon

181. “Occasionally, a re-enactment is a fine thing. I love Civil War re-enactments.”

— John Lydon

182. “You’ve got to learn in life, you’ve got to learn it quick and keep it for the rest of your life: pull your own strings, and have no puppetmaster – and – habits – are – puppetmasters.”

— John Lydon

183. “You’d have to be daft as a brush to say you didn’t like Pink Floyd.”

— John Lydon