- Punk was one of those great musical revolutions that comes along every other generation that involves not only great music but involves a culture, a look, a politics with a small 'p'.
- It's impossible to remember how dull the mid-seventies were. Anyone who claims that the mid-seventies were somehow interesting, in particular people who put together Old Grey Whistle Test (The Old Grey Whistle Test (1971)) compilations, should be shot, basically, because it was a dreary, dreary period of culture.
- I've never paid for private health-care because I'm a socialist. Now I find you can get tummy tucks and cosmetic surgery on the NHS but not the drugs I need to stay alive. It is a scandal.
- I used to say some people make money and some make history - which is very funny until you find you can't afford to keep yourself alive.
- I'm the one person in this industry who famously has never made any money.
- Of all the things I do in my life the most exciting thing I've ever done, and the thing I have most loved, is being part of a record company. The idea of working with brilliant young musicians, and being close to the center of popular culture, is just the biggest thrill in my life.
- Ian (Ian Curtis) had been the most mesmerising lead singer of his generation. I've always found that Ian's lyrics are very T.S. Eliot, from that same linguistic tradition. It's the same grammar, the same rhythm, the same natural feel of the language. About two months after he died, I remember Bono sitting on my desk and saying how sorry he was about Ian, how he was the greatest singer of our generation. 'Now he's gone,' he said, 'I'll do it in his place.'
- [his advice for people starting in the music industry] Do it for yourself. Be your own customer. Ignore everybody. It was our basic philosophy, the philosophy behind all these sleeves and all the music was based on something Sid Vicious said. Sid Vicious was once asked, "When you make your music, do you think about the man in the street?" "No, I've met the man in the street. He's a c##t." Think about that.
- "Ashes to Ashes" is the great symbol of that period before MTV. It is low tech but low tech pushed to the limits of the imagination, which is a wonderful thing.
- [speaking in 2004] I can't believe that Duran Duran have come back. I thought someone would have killed them for us by now.
- It is the fault of the British Romantic poets, that they created this idea that the art and the artist are the same thing. Before that, human beings were intelligent, they knew that art was one thing and the artist was the other, so the art can be fantastic and the artist can be a complete shit.
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