Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I made the fatal mistake of trying to cut my own hair. It makes me look like I have a good face for radio.
I just wanted to get on telly. I wasn't a massive Oasis fan, but I had to be in order to get on the telly.
That was my fantasy, actually - to become a billionaire, buy the 'Sun' and the 'Mirror,' and close them down.
I've turned my back on fancy parties and red carpets. I'm a writer, and if I did that, I'd never get anything done.
It's funny, but I always feel really safe on the streets of London. It's the most inspiring place to be in the world.
My older sister, Amy Jo, and I - we are the first generation of my family to stay on at school and do any exams at all.
My brother and I are not rivals. We are shipmates and best friends and the greatest songwriting partnership in the world.
To meet my little girl for the first time was a humbling experience. She's got my eyes and a smile that just melts my heart.
I'm not going to be hardened by these people, to these things, I'm not going to let them destroy my feelings or my emotions.
No one comes up to me asking for a crack dealer's number. People come up to me to talk about lyrics, about music, about the band.
It's not enough to play the old songs; that feels like being your own covers band or something. It's a big release to do new stuff.
So many actors say, 'Oh, I can't bear to see myself on screen,' but it's not true. Everyone loves to see themselves from a good angle.
It's difficult talking about someone you love when you've split up with them, because it's painful to rake up all those old emotions again.
When I was 16, walking down Oxford Street, I saw Ian Brown. I said, 'Are you Ian Brown?' He said no and walked off, but I am sure it was him.
Money wasn't important to me. Once I discovered music, I was quite happy to live as a bum. As long as I had my music and my band, I was happy.
Humanity's always been weird at heart. Look at how societies form, rituals, practices, even rock n' roll. Humanity really is dark and twisted.
Every day I wake up in Paris, it's real tranquillity. No pressure. I'm out of the grasp of people. I don't have a phone, and I drift a little bit.
When you see a photograph of a football crowd at a Saturday afternoon game in August 1963, you've got 40,000 men in trilbies. That's paradise, man.
I'm always nervous before playing a gig, to tell you the truth. It's what nearly did me in when I was with the Libertines. I just couldn't handle it.
The fact that I'm obviously well enough to be playing - in fine fettle and fine singing voice, yet I am not playing with The Libertines - is a sore point.
Each man kills the things he loves. I recognise that in myself - in relationships, even with guitars - beautiful things that I've had and wilfully destroyed.
'Each man kills the things he loves'. I recognise that in myself, in relationships, even with guitars, beautiful things that I've had and wilfully destroyed.
The rush that you get from having a good night's sleep is so exotic: to feel powerful and clean, capable and potent, as opposed to washed up, impotent and mute.
There's a difference between performing in Philadelphia to New York as much as a difference between playing in Luton and playing in San Francisco, y'know what I mean?
There's a difference between performing in Philadelphia to New York as much as a difference between playing in Luton and playing in San Francisco, y’know what I mean?
When you split up with someone, someone that you're seriously in love with, it takes a lot of time before you even realise that you're upset. You know? It just hits you.
I can't see why people call me a bad influence. I meet a lot of kids who are into music. I spend as much time as I can with them. I listen to their demos, and I'm encouraging.
He kind of makes me ill, David Cameron. I liked the old-fashioned Tory - like Winston Churchill, who had style. But Cameron's like a new breed - computer-generated. I hate it.
I'm not really a fighter, but I've never backed down from anyone in Paris. I feel I can't. In London, I'll just run because I'm not going to fight 50 Wolverhampton Wanderers fans.
I have a distinct memory of friends I had at school whose parents were, for want of a better word, bohemian. That was the kind of England that I thought I should have belonged to.
Amy Winehouse asked me a while ago if I had written any new songs. I played her something, and when I had finished, she looked at me and said, 'Is that it? Is that all you've got?'
It's never going to be hipster because you've got that smell that the sea gives out twice a day. That's why Margate will never be gentrified. However, there is art-led regeneration.
I've learnt that there's nothing in my day to day life or anything that I do that is in any way aimed at changing how I'm perceived or how I'm presented; it's completely impossible.
In a way, I'm always working with Mick Jones. I feel like he's watching over me all the time. We talk about everything: history quite a lot. Balloons and wars and old football players. The Clash.
At school, I was always the new boy, so I always went in for the school play. It was a way of breaking the ice and making friends with pupils and teachers for however long I had before moving on.
I reached the point where I was getting arrested all the time in London. I couldn't walk down the street. London becomes a very small village, eventually. You run out of places. It was inescapable.
I knew I had I a better album than 'Up the Bracket' in me, and I wanted to record it. But I was told we've got to keep touring, keep promoting. That was the first time I realised we were on a conveyor belt.
I don't know; we'll see what happens with Brexit. If they make it so that you can't travel any more without a visa, I'm going to have to leave the country, stay in the E.U., and probably change my citizenship.
If Oasis is the sound of a council estate singing its heart out, then the Libertines sounded like someone just putting something in the rubbish chute at the back of the estate, trying to work out what day it is.
It's just about bein' yourself...even when you're on the dole, it's about your leather jacket. Music is the last refuge of the working class, along with football...in fact, gigs and riots are the only things left.
Once you realize that what I’m saying is true and comes from the heart, then it’s easy. But if you see it all as a façade and just a presentation of affected emotion, then it’s not so easy, it’ll just confuse you.
The media circus got a bit twisted when I was in London. It became a bit of a joke, really. In Paris, they're so serious, I can take myself really seriously, too. I can get really morbid without people telling me to cheer up.
I've got a fierce passion for politics but I can't stand the smarmy, hypocritical upper-middle-class dictator nation that prevails and has always prevailed in this country. I'm up for petrol bombers, mate, and fighting in the streets.
When inspiration and emotions are sudden, and you can truly capture something, then, yeah, of course it feels good. But when you’re stunted, and you’re having trouble expressin’ yourself, then obviously it doesn’t. So it’s never constant.
I've been thinking about my life, my loss of friends, relationships, opportunities, money, my values. There's also the loss of relationship with my son and my daughter, who I've only met once. All that loss - I just got so good at blocking it out.
Music and fashion and art - they were the things we were willing to die for. 'Is my hair all right? Have you heard this tune?' They're the things that saved us. They're the things that are saving kids on Nuneaton council estates. There's no other way out.
When you're young and idealistic, you don't care: you'll play to no one, in your bedroom - like kids with football - you'll play anywhere; you just love the music. And then, bang - soon as you're in the industry, you think that's the dream. But that's when the dream starts to end.
This bloke in Rome once took his camera off and cracked me round the head with it, and I'm bleeding. He was a bit bigger than me, the Italian photographer, but I thought, 'I can't back down now,' so I sort of squared up to him. Luckily, my mate jumped round and bit him on the neck.
In the early days of the Libertines, we used to put on Arcadian cabaret nights. There'd be some girl climbing out of an egg; we'd try and get a couple of mates to tell a few jokes, performance poets, and then we'd play in the middle of it all. More people were on stage than in the crowd.
I’m not saying that maybe there isn’t a kid out there whose behavior hasn’t been influenced by me in some way. I’m sure there is. But I can only speak for myself, and if you’d asked if my behavior had ever been affected by people I’d admired from afar, like musicians or footballers, that’d be a yes, totally.