Chrissie Hynde Quotes

I'm not saying I'd already done anything, actually, but I'd passed my experimental streak.

I was a single mom with two kids. What else was I going to do? It was either be in a band or be a waitress.

I preferred rock when it was in the dark, when it was a secret between me and the audience, when it wasn't mainstream.

Whatever I'm already doing becomes enhanced when I smoke pot. It can also be demotivating, because if I'm not doing anything and I smoke a joint, it enhances just sitting in a chair. Then I don't even want to get up to change a record. That might not be a bad thing, but you have to get things done once in a while.

Don't get a job in an abattoir. Don't be a butcher. The idea that people have to do these jobs for a livelihood is ridiculous. They can get other jobs. Shoplift, man. Better to be a prostitute than cut an animal's head off for a living.

I can only cook brown rice and vegetables, so I don't get too many people coming over for dinner parties or anything.

How much did you get for your soul?

I don't like to be recognized on the street or in restaurants, and I don't like the whole celebrity thing.

I just want to play guitar and be in a band. Same as I always did.

Let's get rid of all the economic (expletive) this country represents! Bring it on, I hope the Muslims win!

If you're purely derivative in what you do, then you could very easily get lost along the way. But for me, I might want to even do something else for a while.

No amount of false propaganda can sanitize meat.

Realize your own potential and try to live out your expectations of your potential.

I don't think it's good to be sentimental, so I try not to be.

For my 21st birthday, I think my mother wanted to give me a watch, or something, you know, some kind of traditional thing. And I said, "Well, if you're going to buy me something, there's a Gibson Melody Maker guitar advertised in the paper for 60 dollars. Do you think I could have that?" And I think that she was very disappointed that at 21 I was still messing around with that sort of thing. She didn't understand what it was all about. But now she understands it, and likes it.

In my experience lust only ever leads to misery. All that suspicion and jealousy and anguish it unleashes. I don't want those things in my life.

When I was 16, the pot weeded out the men from the boys, there were the heads and the straights. Now it's almost like money can weed it out, you know?

The so-called feminist writers were disgusted with me. I did my thing, and so I guess by feminist standards I'm a feminist. That suits me fine.

I just want to be as regular, and get by with doing the least amount of publicity, but still look really cool, you know? And get a bit of respect.

I don't really go out to clubs, but if I did, I'd just want to go rock out with my mates or whatever.

Let's face it, we do have this mating instinct that just won't quit, you know? Just when you think it's safe to come out, there it is again. You're driving down the street, and it's the last thing on your mind, and all of a sudden you're like, "Oh, he looks nice," and you're up a lamppost.

Once you stop drinking and smoking and stuff, it really gets on your nerves, all that nonsense going on.

One person can make all the difference in the world. For the first time in recorded human history, we have the fate of the whole planet in our hands.

I don't like to think that I'm on a treadmill of album, tour, promotion and all that.

Songwriting is like working on a jigsaw puzzle, and it doesn't make any sense until you find that last piece. It has to make sense or it doesn't work.

I think Bob Dylan's a good songwriter. I think he's the best songwriter in the world probably.

I don't listen to music, and I don't particularly watch television, so if anyone wants to come over and just hang out with me sitting at the table in silence, you know, eating a dish of rice... I don't get too many takers.

There's this celebrity thing that goes along with making records or being a rock star. I'm into this celebrity thing just enough to let me go on making records and making a living out of it.

The Clash were innovative, radical and helped drive a change in music that was ground-breaking. In comparison to some of the music today they sounded like they meant it. I still listen to their music today to remind myself what music made with commitment sounds like.

In fact, I've only been to a couple of other people's dinner parties. But I must admit, I really enjoyed the few I've been to, but I'm not really on that circuit.

I don't believe there is any justifiable reason for killing any animal unless perhaps if it's killing you! That would be negotiable.

The cliché of that sort of wasted, renegade, drugged-out musician of the '70s is kind of dead and gone now. And I suppose that a lot of people still keep relying on that, or some kind of image to perpetuate something that they think they're supposed to sound like. But that kind of takes you away from real inspiration and, you know, real artistic discovery of the individual.

When you're in a band and you're a girl, you know, guys just don't ... it's not the same kind of a groove as a girl walking up wearing a mac with nothing on underneath, or knocking on someone's door at three in the morning.

I don't want my children to be at a disadvantage, growing up in the limelight, because then they have to live up to an identity already cut out for them, relating all the time to being so-and-so's daughter or so-and-so's son.

Real success is not being on the cover of a magazine; it's knowing that you've done, and enjoyed doing, what you set out to do.

There are no real men.

I expect people to at least use some thought.

I'm with someone who's got very high standards, and he doesn't tolerate all these ridiculous vices very easily. That's not reason enough to marry someone, although people have gotten married for less.

The celebrity thing is such a thing in itself now.

A ballad once in a while doesn't go amiss

I like Madonna a lot. I think she's really good and I think she's a good singer. I think she looks good and she's got a nice kind of... I don't think she's got a sinister or cynical vibe around her, and I don't think she's got any sort of bullshit around her.

I hope there is an edge to what I do.

I don't wish to embarrass anyone.

I always thought if a guy could play the guitar, he must be something really special.

You know, when you're 23 and you get pissed, I mean drunk, you can just go crazy and it's all right. But if you're 43 and you do it, it's like your best friend's mother who used to come in pissed and everybody was really embarrassed. It just doesn't go down well, you know, after a certain age.

The only person stopping you from doing something is yourself, and looking for excuses all the time just gets in the way of obtaining your own goals. It's like the writer who keeps getting up and straightening the pictures in the room.

I have no sense of patriotism, but I do have a sense of community.

Everyone has their set of problems and I'm certainly not going to sensationalize mine or try to evoke pity or sympathy out of people because I don't think they warrant that sort of thing. That's my private karma that I have to work out.