“I have no love for myself as a human being, but I have immense pride in the music I make.”
― Morrissey
“When I’m lying in my bed I think about life and I think about death and neither one particularly appeals to me.”
― Morrissey
“I’m not an anarchist, but I believe that people don’t want the royal family – the so-called royal family.”
― Morrissey
“When you’re younger, you see the people who are in power and think they must have that position because of some degree of skill. And as you get older, you realize it’s not true, that most people in those positions are absolutely inept. And this naturally makes you feel better about yourself.”
― Morrissey
“Let lying dogs sleep is something I always say in reference to the Smiths.”
― Morrissey
“The rhino is now more or less extinct, and it’s not because of global warming or shrinking habitats. It’s because of Beyonce’s handbags.”
― Morrissey
“Life’s full of tricky snakes and ladders.”
― Morrissey
“Racism is beyond common sense and has no place in our society.”
― Morrissey
“You have to, at least from a distance, look as if you know what you’re doing, and I can manage that.”
― Morrissey
“Long hair is an unpardonable offence which should be punishable by death.”
― Morrissey
“I’ve never intended to be controversial, but it’s very easy to be controversial in pop music because nobody ever is.”
― Morrissey
“That’s why I do this music business thing, it’s communication with people without having the extreme inconvenience of actually phoning anybody up.”
― Morrissey
“Although I don’t have anything against people from other countries, the higher the influx into England the more the British identity disappears.”
― Morrissey
“The word ‘indie’ is meaningless now. It’s so over-used that people think it simply means green hair.”
― Morrissey
“Congratulations to Prince Charles for banning foie gras from all his functions.”
― Morrissey
“The monarchy is foremost a business, and it’s important to them that the British public continue to finance the excessive luxurious lifestyles of the now quite enormous, wasteful and useless ‘royal’ family. I find it very sad.”
― Morrissey
“Peru, Peru. My heart’s lighthouse.”
― Morrissey
“Often I feel I say too much.”
― Morrissey
“The Smiths was an incredibly personal thing to me. It was like launching your own diary to music.”
― Morrissey
“The most common phrase bandied about these days is ‘Oh my God’. People say it automatically all the time – not realising that that’s a form of prayer.”
― Morrissey
“I am slightly shocked to have gone as far as I have.”
― Morrissey
“I don’t think I’m ever forgiven for anything, which is baffling because I’m not on TV that much.”
― Morrissey
“Lady Gaga said to me, ‘You showed me how it’s done.’ I have no idea what she meant by ‘it.’”
― Morrissey
“I don’t want to go on much longer, really. I think that would suggest a lack of imagination. A certain lack of dignity also.”
― Morrissey
“War, I thought, was the most negative aspect of male heterosexuality. If more men were homosexual, there would be no wars, because homosexual men would never kill other men, whereas heterosexual men love killing other men.”
― Morrissey
“Age shouldn’t affect you. It’s just like the size of your shoes – they don’t determine how you live your life! You’re either marvellous or you’re boring, regardless of your age.”
― Morrissey
“I do maintain that if your hair is wrong, your entire life is wrong.”
― Morrissey
“Obviously Madonna reinforces everything absurd and offensive.”
― Morrissey
“What’s the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning? Wish I hadn’t.”
― Morrissey
“There has to reach a point where you’ve said enough.”
― Morrissey
“For me to think in terms of employing security seems ostentatious.”
― Morrissey
“The fire in the belly is essential, otherwise you become Michael Buble – famous and meaningless.”
― Morrissey
“Artists aren’t really people. And I’m actually 40 per cent papier mache.”
― Morrissey
“That was the problem with the ‘celibate’ word because they don’t consider for a moment that you’d rather not be, but you just are. I was never a sexual person.”
― Morrissey
“Age gives you a great sense of proportion. You can be very hard on yourself when you’re younger but now I just think ‘well everybody’s absolutely mad and I’m doing quite well’.”
― Morrissey
“My parents were worried about me, certainly when I became so deeply interested in music and people like the New York Dolls who, at the time, were very peculiar indeed.”
― Morrissey
“I do think it’s possible to go through life and never fall in love, or find someone who loves you.”
― Morrissey
“Not everybody is absolutely stupid. Why on earth would I be racist, what would I be trying to achieve?”
― Morrissey
“I normally live in Los Angeles, if you can call it normally living.”
― Morrissey
“I always seem to be singing against the grain.”
― Morrissey
“Even though I’ve been reasonably well known for quite a long time, I still can’t get a record on daytime radio or on MTV.”
― Morrissey
“I know I will never have a hit single in America.”
― Morrissey
“I think there are unseen powers who don’t want pop music to be anything other than glorified Madonnas.”
― Morrissey
“Reggae is vile.”
― Morrissey
“You are bound to pick up influences.”
― Morrissey
“I would find the idea of compiling a setlist that doesn’t wildly excite me to be too restricting.”
― Morrissey
“I think I’d be a prime candidate for canonisation.”
― Morrissey
“I don’t know what I am.”
― Morrissey
“I feel undefinable actually.”
― Morrissey
“If you travel to Germany, it’s still absolutely Germany. If you travel to Sweden, it still has a Swedish identity.”
― Morrissey
“It could be construed that the reason I wouldn’t wish to live in England is the immigration explosion. And that’s not true at all.”
― Morrissey
“I know L.A. well, but it’s a police state.”
― Morrissey
“You can’t help but feel that the Chinese are a subspecies.”
― Morrissey
“I’m cursed with the gift of foresight.”
― Morrissey
“I earn more than I thought I would when I became a poet.”
― Morrissey
“If anyone has seen the horrific and unwatchable footage of the Chinese cat and dog trade – animals skinned alive – then they could not possibly argue in favour of China as a caring nation. There are no animal protection laws in China and this results in the worst animal abuse and cruelty on the planet. It is indefensible.”
― Morrissey
“If you walk through Knightsbridge on any bland day of the week you won’t hear an English accent. You’ll hear every accent under the sun apart from the British accent.”
― Morrissey
“England is a memory now. The gates are flooded and anybody can have access to England and join in.”
― Morrissey
“If you love animals, obviously it doesn’t make sense to hurt them.”
― Morrissey
“Those Catholics, they really nab you when you’re young.”
― Morrissey
“I’m capable of looking on the bright side. I just don’t do it very often.”
― Morrissey
“I find that it isn’t wise to attempt to judge people on their public persona, and even on the music they make. Because I’ve met so many people whose music I cannot stand, and they’re very nice. At the same time, I’ve met people whose music I’ve loved, and they’re not the person you’ve invested all this emotion in.”
― Morrissey
“I think the pop chart today is entirely market-driven. And it has nothing to do with public taste. And it has nothing to do with moving music forward. It’s simply a market chart.”
― Morrissey
“Pop music has progressed.”
― Morrissey
“I’m a traditionalist.”
― Morrissey
“Once somebody is known, it seems as though anybody anywhere can say anything about them. Whereas if I simply stopped someone in the street and criticised their clothes, their work, their parents, their inner being, I’d be sued and I’d be thrown in prison.”
― Morrissey
“I don’t necessarily think that the world should know everything, and even if you consider yourself to be extremely honest, that doesn’t mean you have to blurt everything out all the time.”
― Morrissey
“Everything about my life is private, really. I’m not so sure that any of it has ever been public.”
― Morrissey
“The Royal family to me are not England, and they are not the flag.”
― Morrissey
“It’s so tedious that everyone must be defined.”
― Morrissey
“All of us, ultimately, we’re not that interesting, when it comes down to it.”
― Morrissey
“People don’t like me.”
― Morrissey
“The Queen is the ultimate dictator.”
― Morrissey
“Well, I’m a Catholic by birth and you can never shed it.”
― Morrissey
“I began to go to concerts when I was 12 years old.”
― Morrissey
“I never imagined I’d be a solo artist. And now I couldn’t imagine being part of a group.”
― Morrissey
“There’s no such thing as good news in America.”
― Morrissey
“It’s always nice to receive a compliment.”
― Morrissey
“I don’t iron anything. Never have and never will.”
― Morrissey
“I swim when I can but I don’t work out.”
― Morrissey
“My family, although they’re very large on both my parents’ sides, they don’t know much about their family tree. Occasionally, they try to dig, but they can’t get very far, and it’s baffling. In Dublin, it seems that so many public records were wiped out; it’s proven to be very difficult, so I know very little.”
― Morrissey
“I’ve only been to Ireland once, and I felt I would wake up with voices in my head, almost like music, and that if I were a songwriter, I would be very inspired.”
― Morrissey
“I mean, death is a serious thing, certainly not to be sneezed at.”
― Morrissey
“The solo years have been more meaningful to the audiences than the Smiths years, but the press in England only write about me in relation to the Smiths era.”
― Morrissey
“The Smiths are never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever going to reunite – ever.”
― Morrissey
“My talents do not lie in DIY.”
― Morrissey
“The body changes shape and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
― Morrissey
“I don’t even know if I exist offstage.”
― Morrissey
“I hated the royal wedding.”
― Morrissey
“I didn’t really see the British punk movement, if that’s what it was, as wildly original, because I had been listening so intently to all the New York music since 1973, really.”
― Morrissey
“I’ve been pilloried so many times that I begin to expect it now.”
― Morrissey
“Artists aren’t really people. I’m actually 40 per cent papier mache.”
― Morrissey
“Killing a stag is like killing a child.”
― Morrissey
“As London is suddenly promoted as a super-wealth brand, the England outside London shivers beneath cutbacks, tight circumstances and economic disasters.”
― Morrissey
“I still prefer horses to human beings.”
― Morrissey
“Any criticism of Thatcher throws a dangerously absurd light on the entire machinery of British politics. Thatcher’s name must be protected, not because of all the wrong that she had done, but because the people around her allowed her to do it.”
― Morrissey
“No British politician has ever been more despised by the British people than Margaret Thatcher.”
― Morrissey
“I am unable to watch the Olympics due to the blustering jingoism that drenches the event. Has England ever been quite so foul with patriotism? The ‘dazzling royals’ have, quite naturally, hi-jacked the Olympics for their own empirical needs, and no oppositional voice is allowed in the free press.”
― Morrissey
“With the issue of immigration, it’s very difficult because, although I don’t have anything against people from other countries, the higher the influx into England, the more the British identity disappears.”
― Morrissey
“I’m fascinated by people in their eighties and nineties. Especially those who are still creating and living in an interesting way. I am fascinated by them because they have so much to say now that they’ve lived for so long.”
― Morrissey
“As a very small child I found recorded noise and the solitary singer beneath the spotlight so dramatic and so brave… walking the plank… willingly… It was sink or swim. The very notion of standing there, alone, I found beautiful.”
― Morrissey
“We’re all lonely, but I’d rather be lonely by myself than with a long list of duties and obligations. I think that’s why people kill themselves, really.”
― Morrissey
“Each year of life brings us nearer to our decline, but I will continue to seek a listener until I’m dead in a ditch.”
― Morrissey
“I have found the best way to avoid ending your life as a bitter wreck is to start out as one.”
― Morrissey
“Killing a stag is like killing a child. What’s the difference?”
― Morrissey
“I first bought a Buffy Sainte-Marie record when I was 12, and her music has always remained with me. In the 1960s, as a political activist, Buffy’s lyrics were fearless, and I’m very grateful for all the risks that she took.”
― Morrissey
“You may not realize this, but people have the power to change the world.”
― Morrissey
“Smiths songs certainly have an astonishing afterlife.”
― Morrissey
“I don’t want to get too involved in marketing budgets, online promotions and download set-ups because it would be a bit like Gertrude Stein mapping out a TV campaign. I want to sing. I want visibility. I am essentially Al Martino, not Seymour Stein.”
― Morrissey
“The paradox is that I have no love for myself as a human being, but I have immense pride in the music I make, and I believe it has an important place. Others do, too, and the thousands of people with Morrissey tattoos certainly proves something.”
― Morrissey
“I think we were all initially swept along with the Obama win, but he’s proven to be simply a set of teeth, and useless in every other regard.”
― Morrissey
“British politics, as the world knows, is a joke. Yet it’s rarely funny.”
― Morrissey
“Whether it be Beyonce or Justin Bieber, we see singers who have absolutely nothing to offer anyone as they walk off stage clutching three Grammys in each hand.”
― Morrissey
“Women don’t go to war to kill other women. Wars and armies and nuclear weapons are essentially heterosexual hobbies.”
― Morrissey
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