Lemmy Kilmister quotes:
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People don't read any more. It's a sad state of affairs. Reading's the only thing that allows you to use your imagination. When you watch films it's someone else's vision, isn't it?"[Interview in The Independent, 15 October 2005]
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Eric Clapton wrote "Layla" when he was coked out of his mind. Later on, it nearly killed him.
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It is a well-known mystery that guitar players suddenly get better once they are dead. Buddy Holly was the first. Stevie Ray Vaughan is known by a lot more people than had ever heard of him when he was alive.
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It seems that our brave new world is becoming less tolerant, spiritual and educated than it ever was when I was young.
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A kid once said to me "Do you get hangovers?" I said, "To get hangovers you have to stop drinking.
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...what happened in New York and Washington is the same thing that England and America did to Berlin every day for three years during World War II -- and Germany did the same thing to England.
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I climbed down the outside of a Holiday Inn once just to surprise one of my crew by getting on his balcony and knocking on his window.
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Apparently people don't like the truth, but I do like it; I like it because it upsets a lot of people. If you show them enough times that their arguments are bullshit, then maybe just once, one of them will say, 'Oh! Wait a minute - I was wrong.' I live for that happening. Rare, I assure you
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Safe sex, safe music, safe clothing, safe hair spray, safe ozone layer. Too late! Everything that's been achieved in the history of mankind has been achieved by not being safe.
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People changing because they think they should is not a good idea, because I just don't think they should, really.
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All you got in life is your honor, man, your own self-image, your own self-respect. If you lose that, or if you give it away or if you sell it, then you ain't got it no more.
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Born to lose. Live to win.
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Daily papers in England used to have an entire page of the paper dedicated to what the Beatles had done the day before.
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Everybody [in The Beatles ] was singing at the same time and the harmonies were great.
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He [Randy Rhoads] was really a good guy. I never could get over how incredibly little he was.
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I don't do regrets. Regrets are pointless. It's too late for regrets. You've already done it, haven't you? You've lived your life. No point wishing you could change it.
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I don't understand people who believe that if you ignore something, it'll go away. That's completely wrong - if it's ignored it gathers strength. Europe ignored Hitler for twenty years. As a result he slaughtered a quarter of the world!
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If I hadn't been living here [in America], do you think we would have gotten a Grammy? No chance.
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Inherited hatred (i.e. hatred your parents schooled you in) is not only stupid, it is destructive - why make your only driving force hate? Seems really f***ing dumb to me.
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[My favorite decade] probably the '60s, because there were hardly any rules and heroin hadn't shown up, so people hadn't started dying. It was incredibly upbeat, and we almost did change the world. I guess that was the best one .
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As you go through life's rich tapestry, you realize that most people you meet aren't fit to shine your shoes. It's a sad fact, but it's true. A good friend is someone who'd hide you if you were on the run for murder. How many of them do you know?
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Don't look to me. Don't ask for help. Don't ask for anything that you can do yourself
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Every generation thinks they are stronger than the generation before it. They think, "It can't happen to me." In the past people have died making that same mistake.
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How many times can a rock star go over the top on drugs? How many times can a rock star be unfaithful to his old lady? It is really fu**ing boring, and that is what they do over and over and over. They just print the same sh*t.
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I guess when you're young you have tunnel vision.
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I hate heroin. It killed off a lot of my generation. It killed off a lot of my friends. Now this generation is getting killed off again. I can't believe it. How many dead bodies do we need to have piled up?
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I have never been married, but that doesn't mean that I didn't mate. As you get older you get too many bad habits. Who is ever going to put up with me?
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I think that is just about as dishonest as a person giving a bad interview. I despise people like that; they don't get two tries. It's all just sensation. It is always bullshit.
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If you think you are too old to rock 'n roll, then you are.
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In my life so far, I have discovered that there are really only two kinds of people: those who are for you, and those who are against you. Learn to recognize them, for they are often and easily mistaken for each other.
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It was just a mercy f**k, as it was our 30th anniversary. They gave Grammy to us for a cover of somebody else's song. It would have a lot more meaning if it had been for one of our songs.
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It will be funny in about 10 years.
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It's just that I am too old now to chase all the woman involved; which just seems a shame.
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Music had been going on a long time before that. You have to remember that before rock n' roll there were a bunch of jazz musicians all doing heroin. That sh*t has been around a long time.
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My entire social life is spent in bars, so I don't see giving up drinking as a viable option. Could you see me saying, 'Tomato juice please?'
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People don't want to see the guy next door on the stage, they want to see a being from another planet. You want to see somebody you'd never meet in ordinary life.
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People lose their lives in the drug wars and you don't have to prove it to yourself because others have proved it for you.
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Randy [ Rhoads] had small hands. Boy, could he play guitar. He became an even better guitar player after he died.
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Reading's the only thing that allows you to use your imagination.
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Sex, death and war. And justice. There's no shortage of lyrics there.
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That was a great time, the summer of '71 - I can't remember it, but I'll never forget it!
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The Beatles had an influence on everybody. You have to realize what an incredible explosion the Beatles were.
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The first time The Runaways played in Britain, Joan Jett wore my bullet belt onstage. The Runaways were really the first all-girl band to really strut their stuff and say, "F**k you." "Cherry Bomb" was the best song for a girl band to sing. It was just outrageous at the time. There were American families sitting on the sofa watching television going, "F**k me." It was great fun.
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There are a lot of good books around. People don't read any more. It's a sad state of affairs. Reading's the only thing that allows you to use your imagination. When you watch films it's someone else's vision, isn't it?
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They [The Beatles ] were the first band to write their own songs in Britain because we always just covered American songs before that.
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They [The Beatles] were the first band to not have a lead singer in the band.
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We know what we are doing by now.We seem to make an album every 18 months or so and I think every band should do that. We're not writing "Sgt. Pepper" every time; we are writing straight ahead rock n' roll.
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We never nicked stuff from other bands because that was a no-no because we were all in the same boat. You don't steal from the poor because, let's face it, they're poor. There's no sense in that.
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We never played China, India or Africa. We also haven't played Russia enough. I would love to play those places.
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We sent out tapes to the others but they didn't wake up. It was worth it just to have one kid wake up. I got to meet him after he woke up.
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We were nominated [for Grammy] once before for our album 1916. We were up against Metallica at the time and they had just sold a quarter of a zillion albums.
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When George [Harrison] died the guards at Buckingham Palace played a medley of George's songs during the changing of the guard; that sort of thing never happens.
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You haven't been soiling your soul in public for years like we have.
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You've got to try to figure out which is the bigger benefit and which is the bigger loser. It nearly killed him [Eric Clapton ]; he was in a very, very bad way for a long time, but he came through it. Most people don't come through it because they don't have the money to buy the people to look after them.
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It became kind of a fad in the late '70s to try to help people wake up out of comas by hearing things that they liked. I remember we sent out about six tapes. We heard that we were this one kid's favorite band so we sent a tape that said, "Hey this is Motörhead. It's time to wake up."
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I have done interviews in the past, and they cut everything out except for the outrageous line, and then they take it out of context.