Our biggest national security threat is the environmental destruction of our planet and the arms race with ourselves.

I'm tired of being ruled by the Skull and Bones. The only place they belong are on punk-rock albums!

I saw the Ramones, early on at a country-rock palace in Denver. They were opening for some record-company band, so the local music establishment, and I emphasize the word "establishment," was there in force, and the handful of us who knew the Ramones were up in front. And half the fun was, you know, not only were the Ramones the most powerful band I had ever seen at that point, but they made it look so simple - that anyone could do it, hell, even I could do it. This is what I should be doing.

I didn't really start writing music or lyrics or turning them into songs until I went to San Francisco.

Respecting other people's cultures is well and good, but I draw the line at where some branches of Islam, what they do to women. It's indefensible.

The boyfriend of the student music teacher came in: "Hey, kids, this is a real Air Force pilot." I asked him something to the effect of how it felt to be dropping bombs on children in Vietnamese villages. And it got very icy in there all of a sudden, and finally the teacher said, "Oh, well, Eric reads a lot of newspapers. Next question."

Punk was originally about creating new, important, energetic music that would hopefully threaten the status quo and the stupidity of the 1970s.