Billie Joe Armstrong Quotes

I think it's your own choice if you turn from an angry young man to a bitter, old bastard.

I got body lice in Germany! I'd tell you they were crabs, but I wasn't getting laid.

I wrote a song called "Green Day" because I was smoking a lot of dope.

We are not afraid to be entertainers.

My wife is the CEO of the family. I'm the fun guy, just trying to make it up as I go along.

I'm not f-ing Justin Bieber, you motherf-ers!

I never thought being obnoxious would get me where I am today.

Set lists are tough because you come up with this structure of how the songs are going to go from one to the next, but at the same time, you have to be spontaneous and take requests and change the set list at the drop of a hat.

I think that's the big difference between this one [Ordinary World] and a lot of the other rock 'n' roll movies. They're playing to tape, but Fred Armisen and I were actually in a rock 'n' roll bad together. I also really related to the character, especially when it came to the parenting part. I'm a pretty klutzy parent.

I don't want to limit myself musically. It would be really limiting if we'd neglect something we really want to do, like explore other styles of music.

I approach playing acoustic guitar more of as a percussive instrument. It's fragile. I don't have a lot of finesse when it comes to my guitar playing.

When I was done with the movie [Ordinary World], I felt really compelled to start working on another album. Little did I know, they were going to come out back to back.

To me, it doesn't feel like it's just another rock record that somebody put out. It feels like we taped into the culture a little bit

The main thing about the character [in the Ordinary World] is that he loves music, and he shares it with his daughter. He's having a mid-life moment, and it's a small moment, really. I think that the character actually really loves where he's at, in his life. He's just trying to have it make a little bit more sense while he figures out what he actually wants to do with it.

No one's really happy anyway, it's not human.

My goal is to be one of the biggest bands in the world, and I have never been bashful about saying that.

The first time that you escape from home or the small town that you live in - there's a reason a small town is called a small town: It's because not many people want to live there.

Time passes by like lightning. Before you know it you're struck down.

I know I'm always going to be a musician, for the rest of my life. That's for sure. It's about how you balance between being a musician and being a parent, and making it intertwined.

And for our fans, they're just crazy people anyway. I always look at people in a Green Day shirt, and I think, 'What's wrong with that person? What kind of hang-ups does that person have?' Obviously, it's not just the catchy songs, it goes deeper than that.

I have no idea where my career is going. I just make the best music that I possibly can.

Punk is not just the sound, the music. Punk is a lifestyle.

What I see in a lot of music movies, or rock 'n' roll movies, that feature a band is that they're lip-synching.

I've been playing rock and roll since I was 16 years old, and now I have a 16-year-old.

When you start getting into your politics it's like you have to be vulnerable and you have to be sort of sensitive. Because if it's always like straight aggression all the time, there becomes no empathy for the stance that you're taking. You're not telling people to think, you're telling them what to think. And also you have to be honest with yourself on that, too.

Always move forward, going straight will get you nowhere.

Well, you know, I look at myself in the morning and yes, yeah I-I am a God.

We do have American Idiot picked up by HBO and I wrote the record and concept to it. [We have] the writer Rolin Jones and [director] Michael Mayer [who also directed the Broadway production], so we'll see what happens.

I sound like an Englishman impersonating an American impersonating an Englishman.

We've been together as a group for a long time so this means a lot... we've done everything ourselves until this point, so thank you to everybody ... do everything you f - -n' believe in, because this is what it's all about.

Punk is always something that's going to be with us and to try and explain that would be stupid at this point.

To do something that you feel in your heart that's great, you need to make a lot of mistakes. Anything that's successful is a series of mistakes.

Attack your instruments. Don't let them attack you.

What annoys the hell out of me is the arrogance of some people. They don't even listen to our music, they decided in advance that they don't like it.

Our passion is our strength.

I hate celebrities. I really hate them.

I threw a big-ass party. It turned out a bit different from Perry's [in That's Ordinary World], but it was pretty nuts. It wasn't me that threw it though, my wife threw me a surprise party. So [unlike Selma Blair's character] she didn't forget.

People are so damned afraid that one day they might wake up and discover that they've grown old.

I'm not going to conform to some consumer need.

I think we have the worst name in rock, I really do. It's the worst name in the world

Minority is about being an individual. It's like you have to sift through the darkness to find your place and be that individual you want to be your entire life.

I just wanted to get the hell out of my town. I wanted to leave with reckless abandon. I didn't care where I ended up, as long as I saw as much as humanly possible.

I think the working-class part of me comes out. Sometimes the people who have the loudest mouths are upper-class, upper-middle-class. The quietest are often working-class people, people who are broke. There is a fear of losing whatever it is that you have. I come from that background.

We've been a band for 16 years. This is what you dream about.

The darkness is coming now god dammit!

I hate television. I hate the internet. I hate cell phones. I hate cameras. I hate everything that destroys creativity.

In every song I write, whether it's a love song or a political song or a song about family, the one thing that I find is feeling lost and trying to find your way.

I don't feel any shame I won't apologize if there ain't nowhere you can go running away from pain when you've been victimized tales from another broken home.