Joanna Newsom Quotes

The people who came to hear me perform or to buy my records were not the type who would be offended [by the song 'The Vatican Rag']. But I gather that there were other people who were offended.

People say bad things about me. I've had people tell me, "You know, Rush, I've been telling people to listen to you and listen to you, and I finally get 'em to do it, and then you say something so offensive, and they look me, 'You listen to this?' And I'm tired of defending you, Rush. Why do you say stupid things?" I know what this is like.

I think it's funny how excited people can get about things I say that don't have anything to do with music. I made a disparaging comment about McDonald's on Twitter once and people flipped out on me.

As an artist, I try and be controversial, and I have been a bit offensive at times. I have a view on the burka, and I'm sure a few of the Muslim girls and their families would have a view of me on stage in next to nothing!

Apparently, there's this whole set of disgruntled people but obviously it's not my intention to offend anyone by changing the style of music that I've done.

I'm not politically correct.

There were a lot of heads turning when people found out I was doing music and when they found out it was country, they were like, 'What?'

Let's cut to the chase, the sharia controversy. I don't think I, or my colleagues, predicted just how enormous the reaction would be. I failed to find the right words. I succeeded in confusing people. I've made mistakes - that's probably one of them.

I don't care about people's feelings, and I'm triggering people worldwide.

There is no right to not be offended, nor should there be.

I'm always shocked by what people react to.

A lot of people are too easily offended. Religious people, for instance. They've been offending other people for centuries.

I think it's really important that people can look at this show and be offended by it. Hopefully, then people will understand that this is still very much a problem we need to solve in other parts of the world. At least we have antibiotics.

It's very difficult to speak to a large group of people these days and not offend someone. I know people walk around with their feelings on their shoulders waiting for you to say something - ahh - did you hear that? And they can't hear anything else you say. The PC police are out in force at all times.

There's something about me that makes a lot of people want to throw up.

It usually happens spur of the moment, like when I broke up My Chemical Romance, it was just that day that I decided it was time for them to be done. And people were very upset about it so I have to choose my next victims carefully.

it's no longer socially acceptable to make bigoted statements and racist remarks. Some people are having an awful time with that: 'I didn't know anybody would be offended!' Well, where have you been? I remember when people got away with it and they don't anymore. That's fabulous.

It's now very common to hear people say 'I'm rather offended by that'.

I like offending people, because I think people who get offended should be offended.

Political correctness is a minefield

If I'm not mistaken, that relationship [of Barack Obama] with Mr.[Bill] Ayers on this board continued after 9/11 and after his reported comments, which were deeply hurtful to people in New York and, I would hope, to every American, because they were published on 9/11, and he said that he was just sorry they hadn't done more.

There's this whole debate about whether being PC is just being like political or whether it's just being a good person, and I feel like that's something that people need to take into consideration because, you know, people are like, "Oh PC culture is ruining America." It's being a good person. If you're offended when people are not, you know, sexist or racist, then you're a part of the problem.

On the BSkyB bid, Rupert Murdoch is now in town in London seeking to sort things out. I would simply say to him, look how people feel about this. Look how the country has reacted with revulsion to the revelations. So do the decent and sensible thing and reconsider, think again, about your bid for BSkyB.

I think any time you take on touchy subjects, you're going to offend some people, or you're going to please others.

I never thought to look at the New York Times one, even though I knew people were pissed off. I've seen YouTube videos from people who are pissed off at me about that and that takes a lot of effort to go find.