Lester Bangs Quotes

I just find social media such a robotic experience, whereas punk was right in your face.

I don't think I ever worry too much about what our target audience is, what we should be releasing. I just write naturally and organically and try to write from the heart.

Rock'n'roll is an attitude, it's not a musical form of a strict sort. It's way of doing things, of approaching things. Writing can be rock'n'roll, or a movie can be rock'n'roll. It's a way of living your life.

Punk rock isn't something you grow out of Punk rock is an attitude, and the essence of that attitude is 'give us some truth'

Metal has its own code of cool, but it's not really trying to be cool. And that was very refreshing to me, that metal is very much about expressing something that seems awesome to you even if, at the time, much of the world was going to mock and reject it.

We were doing things with a hundred per cent feeling. It wasn't programmed. It wasn't asked for. It wasn't structured. It was just there. It was very raw. I don't think the industry would allow that to happen again.

I think, fundamentally, the core of everything I do is punk rock.

I think that being precious and rock and roll should never go together.

I don't even think whether I play the blues or not, I just play whatever feels right at the moment.

It's good to be employable, but I hope to show the truth. The paintings seem true because nobody wants me to do them.

Basically I just had to say, 'Screw everyone around me - from now on I'm just gonna play what I think is important to me and our music.' So I gave the big finger to all the current trends in technical wizardry, and just went off and did what I felt was best for the songs.

Please don't try to make things nice! All the wrong notes are right. Just copy as I have -- I want it that way.

I'm gonna write from personal experience, from emotion, from whatever the hell I'm feeling that day.

I don't pay attention to things like the talent for style. I don't meditate on things like that. I just do whatever I think I should do and go with it, and if people like it, then I'm very happy about it. And if not, I always figure it's their problem not mine.

The original concept of rock and roll... was supposed to be this young angst with mistakes and all. Four or five guys get together, get angry and that's really how it starts, and it's all this energy.

I don't consciously try to take my readers on a journey as I don't really think about my readers when I'm writing. I just try to write what I feel passionately about, to tell a story down onto the page.

I can't think of another attitude to have toward an audience than a hopeful and positive one. And if that includes such unfashionable things as sentimentality, well, I can afford it.

Let's show them all how it's done, let's do it all imperfectly.

You should really stay true to your own style. When I first started writing, everybody said to me, 'Your style just isn't right because you don't use the really flowery language that romances have.' My romances - compared to what's out there - are very strange, very odd, very different. And I think that's one of the reasons they're selling.

I don't think I'm a great actress. I think I can act or I can react. Coming from a musical background and being a dramatic singer and writer, when I write stuff I really feel it. So I sing it like it comes from here. That's how I do the acting.

You try to be as original as you can be without thinking about statistics. You just go from the soul and from the heart.

I don't think an actor needs to necessarily go through his things to do his job. I think it's way more important to imagine. And then, when you're imagining, your experiences, your images and your own personal things will show up, but you keep imagining. You don't get stuck in your own personal things, otherwise you are telling your story in every character, and that's not interesting for anybody.

I have made a silent compact with myself not to change a line of what I write. I am not interested in perfecting my thoughts, nor my actions.

I write movies about mavericks, about people who break rules, and I don't like movies about people who are pulverised for being mavericks.

Many people forget that Jazz, no matter what form it takes, must come from the heart as well as the mind.