The popularity of punk rock was, in effect, due to the fact that it made ugliness beautiful.

Our culture has become something that is completely and utterly in love with its parent. It's become a notion of boredom that is bought and sold, where nothing will happen except that people will become more and more terrified of tomorrow, because the new continues to look old, and the old will always look cute.

I've always thought that gaming and YouTube and the web is a very post-punk extravaganza.

I never intended for the Sex Pistols to be immeasurably successful.

There are two rules I've always tried to live by: turn left, if you're supposed to turn right; go through any door that you're not supposed to enter. It's the only way to fight your way through to any kind of authentic feeling in a world beset by fakery.

What matters is this: Being fearless of failure arms you to break the rules. In doing so, you may change the culture and just possibly, for a moment, change life itself.

The thing about Paris, it's a great city for wandering around and buying shoes and nursing a cafe au lait for hours on end and pretending you're Baudelaire. But it's not a city where you can work.