Shane MacGowan Quotes

Still humping the American Dream

When people get this consciousness of the way things are supposed to be in America - that the locus of agency is in them, that they are supposed to be the ones setting the agenda - if people believe this, they get very energized. Yeah, it's annoying to have this extra burden of saving the country.

Let us all work for the nation that is yet to be but which yet must be.

From church to Congress, America has become a nation of self-indulgent, what's-in-it-for-me individual freedom seekers.

Hope is like a path in the countryside. Originally, there is nothing - but as people walk this way again and again, a path appears.

Non-cooperation is directed not against men but against measures. It is not directed against the Governors, but against the system they administer. The roots of non-cooperation lies not in hatred but in justice if not in love.

I love the fact that trying is respected. The American Dream: if you try, if you build it, they will come. I love that. It's honorable.

One of the beautiful and terrible things about America is you can go there and still be whatever you want, if you bust your ass and you have some luck.

The lyrics stand today (1980). They're still my feeling about politics. I want to see the plan. I want to know what you're going to do after you've knocked it all down. I mean, can't we use some of it? What's the point of bombing Wall Street? If you want to change the system, change the system. It's no good shooting people.

We wanted to bring attention to the fact that we had so many deals taking place that we could have made change for the better for all people, and we felt that we would be a catalyst to bring this to attention to society.

I'm gonna fight, and I'm gonna make something out of nothing. That's pretty much the American dream. So, for me, the realization that I could speak to people like that came first on a small scale. Then it just started happening. I started having this vibration.

I run great risk of failing. It may be that I shall encounter ruin where I look for reputation and a career of honor. The chances are perhaps more in favour of ruin than of success. But, whatever may be the chances, I shall go on as long as any means of carrying on the fight are at my disposal.

If you really want something , you can have it if you're willing to pay the price. And the price means you have to work better and harder than the next guy.

We are either a United people, or we are not. If the former, let us, in all maters of general concern act as a nation, which have national objects to promote, and a national character to support. If we are not, let us no longer act a farce by pretending to it.

But we believed if we kept on working, if we kept on marching, if we kept on voting, if we kept on believing, we would make America beautiful for everybody.

A little matter will move a party, but it must be something great that moves a nation.

That's why I work every day. Ev-er-y day. I want to knock people out.

All I know about getting something that you want is that there are three essential things: wanting, trying and getting the opportunity, the breaks. None works alone without the others. Wanting is basic. Trying is up to you. And the breaks - I do know this, they always happen.

I'm not one of those people who thinks they simply deserves success. I have the drive to work. Maybe that's why I've stayed on the fringe.

You cannot keep determined people for success.

There is always room at the top, don't let them tell you there is not.

I'm not American, but I do have an opinion, and I think that right now, it is what it is, and I think the country needs to come together to say: What is the America we want to create right now? The same thing will happen on television now going forward if we do have a female president. It will be something that will be discussed.

America is promises to take! America is promises to us to take them.

I believe that we are lost here in America, but I believe we shall be found. And this belief, which mounts now to the catharsis of knowledge and conviction, is for me--and I think for all of us--not only our own hope, but America's everlasting, living dream.

I always say that one has no right to hope without endeavor.