Steven Patrick Morrissey quotes:

If anyone has seen the horrific and unwatchable footage of the Chinese cat and dog trade - animals skinned alive - then they could not possibly argue in favour of China as a caring nation. There are no animal protection laws in China and this results in the worst animal abuse and cruelty on the planet. It is indefensible.

I don't want to get too involved in marketing budgets, online promotions and download set-ups because it would be a bit like Gertrude Stein mapping out a TV campaign. I want to sing. I want visibility. I am essentially Al Martino, not Seymour Stein.

The monarchy is foremost a business, and it's important to them that the British public continue to finance the excessive luxurious lifestyles of the now quite enormous, wasteful and useless 'royal' family. I find it very sad.

No British politician has ever been more despised by the British people than Margaret Thatcher.

Racism is beyond common sense and has no place in our society.

Age shouldn't affect you. It's just like the size of your shoes - they don't determine how you live your life! You're either marvellous or you're boring, regardless of your age.

As a very small child I found recorded noise and the solitary singer beneath the spotlight so dramatic and so brave... walking the plank... willingly... It was sink or swim. The very notion of standing there, alone, I found beautiful.

British politics, as the world knows, is a joke. Yet it's rarely funny.

Life's full of tricky snakes and ladders.

We're all lonely, but I'd rather be lonely by myself than with a long list of duties and obligations. I think that's why people kill themselves, really.

I do maintain that if your hair is wrong, your entire life is wrong.

I am unable to watch the Olympics due to the blustering jingoism that drenches the event. Has England ever been quite so foul with patriotism? The 'dazzling royals' have, quite naturally, hi-jacked the Olympics for their own empirical needs, and no oppositional voice is allowed in the free press.

Once somebody is known, it seems as though anybody anywhere can say anything about them. Whereas if I simply stopped someone in the street and criticised their clothes, their work, their parents, their inner being, I'd be sued and I'd be thrown in prison.

Women don't go to war to kill other women. Wars and armies and nuclear weapons are essentially heterosexual hobbies.

I don't want to go on much longer, really. I think that would suggest a lack of imagination. A certain lack of dignity also.

I know L.A. well, but it's a police state.

People don't like me.

I hated the royal wedding.

England is a memory now. The gates are flooded and anybody can have access to England and join in.

What's the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning? Wish I hadn't.

There's no such thing as good news in America.

That's why I do this music business thing, it's communication with people without having the extreme inconvenience of actually phoning anybody up.

When you're younger, you see the people who are in power and think they must have that position because of some degree of skill. And as you get older, you realize it's not true, that most people in those positions are absolutely inept. And this naturally makes you feel better about yourself.

The most common phrase bandied about these days is 'Oh my God'. People say it automatically all the time - not realising that that's a form of prayer.

The paradox is that I have no love for myself as a human being, but I have immense pride in the music I make, and I believe it has an important place. Others do, too, and the thousands of people with Morrissey tattoos certainly proves something.

As London is suddenly promoted as a super-wealth brand, the England outside London shivers beneath cutbacks, tight circumstances and economic disasters.

You may not realize this, but people have the power to change the world.

War, I thought, was the most negative aspect of male heterosexuality. If more men were homosexual, there would be no wars, because homosexual men would never kill other men, whereas heterosexual men love killing other men.

I began to go to concerts when I was 12 years old.

I have found the best way to avoid ending your life as a bitter wreck is to start out as one.

The body changes shape and there's nothing you can do about it.

I find that it isn't wise to attempt to judge people on their public persona, and even on the music they make. Because I've met so many people whose music I cannot stand, and they're very nice. At the same time, I've met people whose music I've loved, and they're not the person you've invested all this emotion in.

When I'm lying in my bed I think about life and I think about death and neither one particularly appeals to me.

Peru, Peru. My heart's lighthouse.

I first bought a Buffy Sainte-Marie record when I was 12, and her music has always remained with me. In the 1960s, as a political activist, Buffy's lyrics were fearless, and I'm very grateful for all the risks that she took.

I think the pop chart today is entirely market-driven. And it has nothing to do with public taste. And it has nothing to do with moving music forward. It's simply a market chart.

It could be construed that the reason I wouldn't wish to live in England is the immigration explosion. And that's not true at all.

I've only been to Ireland once, and I felt I would wake up with voices in my head, almost like music, and that if I were a songwriter, I would be very inspired.

That was the problem with the 'celibate' word because they don't consider for a moment that you'd rather not be, but you just are. I was never a sexual person.

Lady Gaga said to me, 'You showed me how it's done.' I have no idea what she meant by 'it.'

I always seem to be singing against the grain.

I've been pilloried so many times that I begin to expect it now.

Killing a stag is like killing a child.

It's so tedious that everyone must be defined.

If you travel to Germany, it's still absolutely Germany. If you travel to Sweden, it still has a Swedish identity.

I never imagined I'd be a solo artist. And now I couldn't imagine being part of a group.

I mean, death is a serious thing, certainly not to be sneezed at.

The Royal family to me are not England, and they are not the flag.

I would find the idea of compiling a setlist that doesn't wildly excite me to be too restricting.

Reggae is vile.

Whether it be Beyonce or Justin Bieber, we see singers who have absolutely nothing to offer anyone as they walk off stage clutching three Grammys in each hand.

Although I don't have anything against people from other countries, the higher the influx into England the more the British identity disappears.

I'm not an anarchist, but I believe that people don't want the royal family - the so-called royal family.

Smiths songs certainly have an astonishing afterlife.

My family, although they're very large on both my parents' sides, they don't know much about their family tree. Occasionally, they try to dig, but they can't get very far, and it's baffling. In Dublin, it seems that so many public records were wiped out; it's proven to be very difficult, so I know very little.

I don't think I'm ever forgiven for anything, which is baffling because I'm not on TV that much.

Congratulations to Prince Charles for banning foie gras from all his functions.

The fire in the belly is essential, otherwise you become Michael Buble - famous and meaningless.

The rhino is now more or less extinct, and it's not because of global warming or shrinking habitats. It's because of Beyonce's handbags.

If you walk through Knightsbridge on any bland day of the week you won't hear an English accent. You'll hear every accent under the sun apart from the British accent.

I think I'd be a prime candidate for canonisation.

I have no love for myself as a human being, but I have immense pride in the music I make.

The word 'indie' is meaningless now. It's so over-used that people think it simply means green hair.

I'm fascinated by people in their eighties and nineties. Especially those who are still creating and living in an interesting way. I am fascinated by them because they have so much to say now that they've lived for so long.

The Smiths was an incredibly personal thing to me. It was like launching your own diary to music.

Each year of life brings us nearer to our decline, but I will continue to seek a listener until I'm dead in a ditch.

Long hair is an unpardonable offence which should be punishable by death.

It's always nice to receive a compliment.

I'm cursed with the gift of foresight.

Any criticism of Thatcher throws a dangerously absurd light on the entire machinery of British politics. Thatcher's name must be protected, not because of all the wrong that she had done, but because the people around her allowed her to do it.

Even though I've been reasonably well known for quite a long time, I still can't get a record on daytime radio or on MTV.

The Queen is the ultimate dictator.

With the issue of immigration, it's very difficult because, although I don't have anything against people from other countries, the higher the influx into England, the more the British identity disappears.

For me to think in terms of employing security seems ostentatious.

I think there are unseen powers who don't want pop music to be anything other than glorified Madonnas.

My parents were worried about me, certainly when I became so deeply interested in music and people like the New York Dolls who, at the time, were very peculiar indeed.

I earn more than I thought I would when I became a poet.

You are bound to pick up influences.

There has to reach a point where you've said enough.

I don't even know if I exist offstage.