Mumia Abu-Jamal Quotes

Not long ago, a hat was a conformist accessory. Then the 1960s came along, and young people didn't want to wear hats.

I am a person who believes in asking questions, in not conforming for the sake of conforming. I am deeply dissatisfied - about so many things, about injustice, about the way the world works - and in some ways, my dissatisfaction drives my storytelling.

The mark of our time is its revulsion against imposed patterns.

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.

I was anti-conformist.

The nonconformist and the rebel say all manner of unanswerable things against the existing republic, but discover to our sense no plan of house or state of their own.

If You Want To Rebel Against Society, Don’t Dull The Blade

I think [rock'n'roll] essence is what made it good and has a lot in common with what originally made monotheism good - it's against everything that is fixed, all the social structures that you can't go past.

The most unpardonable sin in society is independence of thought.

My music fights against the system that teaches to live and die.

In a completely sane world, madness is the only freedom.

I don't hold myself dictated to by what everyone is saying, by the tabloids or popular opinion. I don't like bourgeois values. I say you find your own way to live.

In my parents' generation, rebellion was pop culture. It's not anymore.

I don't value authority. I don't value the systems. I don't value patriarchal religion. I don't value the things that diminish you when you do tell the truth. So I'm not scared of the end result, and that is the biggest asset I have.

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

I suppose you could say I love outlaw American culture.

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.

My characters aren't losers. They're rebels. They win by their refusal to play by everyone else's rules.

Has there ever been a society which has died of dissent? Several have died of conformity in our lifetime.

All hippies around now just represent complete apathy.

I hope I don't have to buck the system. But if it requires bucking, I will do it.

You couldn't put me in a social group setting. I'm probably a terrible anarchist deep down.

I never quite toed the line.

I don't like anything in the mainstream and they don't like me.

With the pride of the artist, you must blow against the walls of every power that exists the small trumpet of your defiance.