Mark E. Smith Quotes

I used to be psychic, but I drank my way out of it.

If you're going to play it out of tune, then play it out of tune properly.

I like to push people till I get the truth out of them.

I like to push people till I get the truth out of them. Get them drunk, or whatever. Then discover what they really think. Push them and push them and push them.

The thing with me. I can't stick musicians. I've thought about this. I can't stand them, and being stuck in a studio with them I think that's my strength I can hear what they can't.

The gigs I enjoy are the ones where I'm so angry and paranoid, and I hate the audience so much, that I put everything into it to feed off the aggressive side of it. I don't actually hate the fans but when I'm feeling angry, pissed off, and full of hate, it's a good gig for me.

I can write, boy, I can write. That's what I do. The trouble is that it's too bloody easy for people, that's why music is in the sorry state that it is. Any idiot, actors mainly, can go in there, sing a chord, bang on a machine... I'm not objecting to that but when people get at me for trying to say something in a rock 'n' roll mode it's as if I'm the freak.

My earliest memory is learning to read 'Muffin the Mule' when I was about three.

When I was 14 I used to have a calendar on my wall, crossing the days off until I was 15, because the school leaving age was 15. Then three months before I turned 15 they changed the leaving age to 16.

I read daft history books. Sometimes the books I read are a bit crackers or strange.

When I was 18 the vision was to make music that didn't exist, because everything else was so unsatisfactory.

I do feel like an outsider, but I don't lose any sleep over it.

Fear is something I try not to absorb.

I was picked on because I was timid. I had younger sisters; I couldn't turn to them for help. I didn't have an older brother.

Every day is great for me. I dislike rose-coloured glasses.

The thing with me, I can't talk about my work. I find it very difficult.

A lot of musicians are really hard to deal with. They aren't as smart as me.

I don't want security guards. I don't think security guards are particularly good for your writing.

We were playing a festival in Dublin the other week. There was this other group, like, warming up in the next sort of chalet, and they were terrible. I said, 'Shut them cunts up!' And they were still warming up, so I threw a bottle at them. The bands said, 'That's the Sons of Mumford' or something. 'They're number five in charts!' I just thought they were a load of retarded Irish folk singers.

Blue cheese contains natural amphetamines. Why are students not informed about this?

It's just like music when you reckon it up. It's like, listening to Pavement, it's just the Fall in 1985, isn't it? They haven't got an original idea in their heads.