Move to Italy. I mean it: they know about living in debt; they don't care. I stayed out there for five months while I was making a film called 'Order Of Death,' and they've really got it sussed. Nice cars. Sharp suits. Great food. Stroll into work at 10. Lunch from 12 till three. Leave work at five. That's living!
John LydonIt's nice to be a part of history but people should get it right. I may not be perfect, but I'm bloody close.
John LydonWhat I like or dislike in music is my internal affair. I never want an audience out there to be influenced because John said. I don't want to have to endure that kind of nonsense. I work for the art of the individual.
John LydonI'm a great self-doubter. I constantly need to prove myself to myself. I've never run to heroin or alcohol to hide that. I always have to deal with it. Stage fright is always going to be there. I have nightmares about bad gigs.
John LydonI've always strived to maintain a very healthy, friendly working situation, and lo and behold, it only took forty years, so the next sixty are looking bright. You're dealing with human beings on the cutting edge, and there's bound to be tension. You have to be make room for that, and you can't be too unreasonable, because that's everybody else's role.
John LydonOne of the most beautiful things about Britain, apart from the NHS and the free education, is the British Army.
John LydonThe way the music industry is now geared, it's fewer accolades towards new and upcoming acts. New bands offer bright creativity. It's a set format. A venue would rather hire a DJ than a band, and that's a problem.
John LydonIf I'm left to my own devices, I will be tempted to make the most unlistenable music possible.
John LydonSome 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 LydonThe country you're born in is where your passport comes from. No, not according to Donald Trump! No, not at all. I resent that kind of extremism of any kind. Left wing, right wing. Anyway at all. Anything that judges other people so harshly and across the board stupidity-wise. I got no time for that.
John LydonPunk was never about one particular clean-cut imagery... it's about many, many individuals coming very loosely together.
John LydonI think there's something basically wrong with the general public that they do need their icons.
John LydonYou can always wake up on the wrong side of the bed and boo-hiss everyone suffers. We can all be temperamental.
John LydonI never wore a studded leather jacket, y'know. Ne-va! If I had had the money I wouldn't have spent it on shit like that.
John LydonWhen you grew up like me and my four brothers, you end up feeling somewhat inadequate, like somehow you don't count.
John LydonAny kind of history you read is basically the winning side telling you the others were bad.
John LydonPeople don't like other poor people, and rather than blame the people that make you all poor, you blame each other.
John LydonI 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 to music in the car.
John LydonPunk is like looking at a mirror. I already have a mirror so I don't need the Offspring to remind me how gorgeous I am.
John LydonI'm not great at dealing with death, I have to say. I find death very hard: my mum, my dad, Sid Vicious. I'm not a monster; I feel it and it scares me. One death at a time, please, is all my heart will bear.
John LydonI have the integrity of a teenager and that's never going to be stolen from me. I'm the original virgin.
John LydonDo what I want, be honest to myself and then it would do good for others, that's all, full on.
John LydonBritain's an island; it's always had a constant ebb and flow of immigration - it makes it a better place.
John LydonI'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 wicked. I can't eat a thing the day before a gig. It'd make me vomit.
John LydonThere's many, many ways to write a song. But generally, sitting down at a table and writing is not one of them.
John LydonI've helped launch 49 careers - those that have been in PiL. To me, they are my babies; whatever they get up to, they know I love them. They've been living in my pockets, and they should show more gratitude.
John LydonYou never know how things will work out. After all the bad reasons in the world, some good came out.
John LydonPunk became a circus didn't it? Everybody got it wrong. The message was supposed to be: Don't follow us, do what you want!
John LydonFor me, I'll always stand up for the disenfranchised, and I'm going to make a big point of that. I'm not a protest singer as such, you know? After the endurance course of the early 70s and 60s, I don't want to become one of them twats. But you got to learn to speak the truth.
John LydonPeriods of inactivity, I don't know such things. I'm consistently writing. My life is busy. It always is. There are hardly any moments for self-indulgent laziness.
John LydonHere's how I understand music. If you can play the same bunch of noise twice, it's music. To go beyond that is supercilious and pontificating.
John LydonIt seems like the more I punish myself, the better it's been. What it is, I'm relentless and I never give up. I never take the easy way out.
John Lydon