Ezra Furman Quotes

To me, punk rock is the freedom to create, freedom to be successful, freedom to not be successful, freedom to be who you are. It's freedom.

Punk rock is very rebellious, of course, but it also means thinking for yourself.

'Punk' doesn't mean Mohawks and safety pins. It's about not conforming.

I never thought of punk rock as the absolute act of rebellion for the sake of rebellion. There's a lot of that in there, but for me I think punk rock was always about questioning things and making decisions for yourself, which is a great message to pass on to your kids.

I never wanted to be part of any scene, I never wanted to be a part of anything, I wanted to do my own thing. Those are the lessons I learned from punk rock.

Punk has always been about doing things your own way. What it represents for me is ultimate freedom and a sense of individuality.

That's what drew me to rock music in the first place - that sense of remaking the world on your own terms.

Punk is musical freedom. It's saying, doing and playing what you want. In Webster's terms, 'nirvana' means freedom from pain, suffering and the external world, and that's pretty close to my definition of Punk Rock.

When I heard 'Dookie' by Green Day for the first time, it unlocked something in me, like, it's totally okay that I'm a little bit weird because these guys are a little bit weird. It made me want to pick up an instrument and do that.

The principles of punk-rock culture, of self-expression and DIY culture, that really spoke to me.

I am not steeped in all that angst. I'm never going to be Sid Vicious.

I remember being really young - being 13 or 14 - when I first was really excited about punk rock as an idea, and I was like, 'Don't ever not be punk. Don't ever not be punk.' Telling that to myself, I guess it was like self-defense against the scary world around me.

It's like our little thing: you can take the girl out of the punk, but you can't take the punk out of the girl.

To me, punk is about being an individual and going against the grain and standing up and saying 'This is who I am'.

Punk will never be dead to me. It's my life. I can never just drop this lifestyle. It embodies me.

People always had something to say about the fact I was odd looking, bigger than other people, that I was awkward. When I discovered punk, I bought into it. That look, combined with being fat, made me even less of what people thought a young woman should be.

I was raised on Nirvana and flannel shirts and Rage Against the Machine, and I sort of describe my youth as rebellious and always fighting the system.

It's very cliched to go, 'You're not punk.' We don't care if we are, and we don't care if we aren't.

I always said punk was an attitude. It was never about having a Mohican haircut or wearing a ripped T-shirt. It was all about destruction, and the creative potential within that.

Punk was never about one particular clean-cut imagery... it's about many, many individuals coming very loosely together.

When you're thirteen and listening to punk, the aggressive nature of music can sway you to the dark side.

I think one of the most important things punk brought back was the whole concept of staying independent and doing things yourself. It made music a lot less boring in any category you can name.

I think of myself as unconventional, I guess. I maybe always had a problem with authority, like a stubbornness about what's expected - despite wanting to get some recognition through performing - but also not always wanting to do the expected thing.

I'm a punk rocker. I don't do Christian.

I do think I have a rebellious, metal-loving rock chick inside of me.