Robert Smith Quotes

I think punk rock needs an 'Amadeus.'

The Sex Pistols came through Atlanta, and I got to go see them. That was historic. It blew me away; it was so much fun. I bought 45s of bands you don't hear about anymore.

I love punk rock, The Clash, The Ramones, The Cramps. I love where it all came from, and music for my ears now, it has to have that same electricity, adrenaline and danger.

The first Decline I did was out of sheer love and appreciation for the music. In 1977, it was more about bands, because punk was a new form of music. It was groundbreaking and political.

I had a big time punk-rock phase and psychobilly phase. I used to go mad for the Guana Batz.

The bands that were big in '77, like the Clash and the Sex Pistols and Talking Heads, I got into them in the early '80s. And it changed my life. It got into my DNA.

The Ramones are an original rock and roll group of 1975, and their songs are brief, to the point, and every one a potential hit single.

The Sex Pistols had it all - they had the snarl, they had the I-don't-give-a-crap attitude - plus, they could play.

When punk began to be a genre, people were going to go out and try to mine it. Some of the better groups, like the Ramones and the Sex Pistols, were very artificial.

There's a punk-rock attitude, clearly, to 'Hated.' There's even a punk-rock attitude to 'The Hangover,' I think. We start the movie with a Glenn Danzig song.

I discovered the Clash, the Pistols, obviously the Ramones, Blondie.

I used to hang out with a bunch of old punk rockers when I was a little kid.

I never met Johnny Rotten, and I didn't want to meet Johnny Rotten.

To me, Sid Vicious is cool. Super chill.

When the 'godfather of punk' thing started floatin' around, it was, I was really, really embarrassed. I thought I should have a great, big rig and a cape and everything, and it was very embarrassing. And then after a while, you learn that if people call you anything, this is a great gift.

There are several books out on punk history, but I haven't read any of them. I was there.

We were watching bands like the Ramones and Blondie and other bands beginning to ignite.

I was a punk when I was 15 - I was definitely into it in a big way and loved it - but I came to London when punk was maybe where you'd say punk is dead.

I made the big turnaround in the early Nineties when I started hearing all the tenth generation punk bands like Green Day and Offspring and all those people. It just made me fall in love with punk again and remember my roots, and since that time I've always wanted to do more of that kind of music again.

I was actually late to the punk movement because I was too young.

It's funny I'm talking to 'Rolling Stone' right now, because back then, it was like, 'Punk rock? Put it back. It's just a flash in the pan.'

I first got into punk music at 17, The Adverts, just from being a bored teenager.

The first music I loved on my own was punk.

I got into punk at 17 after discovering an all-girl band from Long Island on the Internet called The Devotchkas - four crazy-looking girls with fast, driving basslines and high-pitched gang vocals who shared the same dress sense as the punks I used to eye up curiously in Camden.

I was the only real punk rock kid in my school, with, like, the plaid pants and the Rancid t-shirt.