Shannon Hoon Quotes

I can relax with bums because I am a bum. I don't like laws, morals, religions, rules. I don't like to be shaped by society.

You can't be a punk all your life.

I remember at school one day there was a vocabulary list on the chalkboard, and the word 'nonconformist' was on there, and it said, 'Someone that doesn't appeal to society, someone who doesn't fit in.' We had this whole conversation about it, and I realized it cohered to the punk-rock world that I was into.

Turn on, Tune in, Drop out.

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

Everybody was starting to grow long hair and wear pink suits and purple glasses and stuff and then, I suppose, some people thought we were crazy, but we weren't really crazy because we're all still here!

Everything the Beats stood for was the opposite of the dominant culture today.

I can't live in a world of dullards. So I think on that level, I'm definitely punk.

The older I get, the more of an anarchist I become, and I don't mean in a punk rock way.

Hippies believe the world could be a better place. Beatniks believe things aren’t going to get better and say the hell with it, stay stoned and have a good time.

Punk was defined by an attitude rather than a musical style.

When I was a child, I was one of the kids who wore black all the time, and when the kids asked me why I wore black, I said things like, 'I'm mourning the death of modern society.' I mean, I was a riot.

If there is anything the nonconformist hates worse than a conformist, it's another nonconformist who doesn't conform to the prevailing standard of nonconformity.

The only way to be punk rock in L.A. is to be a Republican.

I wanted to make an image for myself as an outlaw type. A kind of rock 'n' roll sensibility.

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

Punk is not just the sound, the music. Punk is a lifestyle.

The biggest misconception about me is the bad-boy image that everyone stuck me into due to my tattoos, drug days and the constant changes I make with my hair color.

I did not have a van, or wear Birkenstocks and tie-dyes.

At 14 and 15, I was sort of my town's resident beatnik.

My whole life is punk.

The motif of Beat Generation is basically misunderstood, a misinterpreted area. There's this superimposition of the idea of a social rebellion, which was the communist interpretation through Lawrence Lipton.

I was very much not a follower of labels in school. If anything, I was labeled 'uncool.'

People can have their punk ideals, but I don't really care about that kind of thing.

Is punk dressing up in leather jackets? No. It's having a counter-cultural perspective.