Thom Yorke quotes:

Ironically my brother died in a car accident shortly after Airbag was recorded. He's not an identical twin so I didn't care.

I don't see it in terms of changing things, but rather using language and music as weapons for fighting a mainstream media which is predominately right wing, and loyal to the political framework and its corporate interests.

Music is more difficult - try naming a political band. The Dead Kennedys. The Dead Kennedys are political, but they are more funny than they are political.

People in bands don't have the kind of conversations people might think they have. The best things about being in a band are the things that are unsaid.

In an interstellar burst I am back to save the universe In a fast German car I'm amazed that I survived An airbag saved my life

One of the interesting things here is that the people who should be shaping the future are politicians. But the political framework itself is so dead and closed that people look to other sources, like artists, because art and music allow people a certain freedom.

My only means of self defense is to wiggle my eye and feign being a salamander. It has saved my life but once I was partially eaten by a bald eagle who thought I was a salamander. Hence, my skills. Hence.

I see fat kids on the street all the time and I give them free radiohead t-shirts with bullseyes on them. Later when I see them wearing the t-shirts I shoot at them with bb guns while riding a very large dog and singing kicking squealing gucci little piggy over and over

My argument would be that I don't think there is much that's genuinely political art that is good art.

The video of 'Paranoid Android' has been censored by MTV. They took all nipples out of the cartoon, but they had no problem with the scene in which a man cuts off his own arms and legs.

Coming from Britain, I was terrified of meeting all these other artists, because artists over there tend to fight with each other a lot, the premise being that there's not enough room for everybody.

I think artists can influence only through making music that challenges people, excites them and flips them out. Music that repeats what you know in ever-decreasing derivation, that's unchallenging and unstimulating, deadens our minds, our imagination and our ability to see beyond the hell we find ourselves in.

I may be a tough fellow but I have a reflective side as well. Reflective as in I'll bash your head in with a ****ing mirror.

I think a lot of tunes can suffer from being so simple, so either they get over-complicated or their simplicity means the simple way to lay them down becomes the difficulty.

So ultimately, it's idealistic to think that artists are able to step away from the power of the media and the way it controls things, and go on doing their own things.

The people in charge, globally, are maniacs. They are maniacs, and unless we do something about it these people are going to deprive us of a future.

I'm not afraid of computers taking over the world.

It is difficult to make political art work.

The band name came about when the original vocalist died when a huge radio fell on his head. He trotted about for a while dancing with the radio on his head, before he died of asphyxiation and blood loss. *Laughs* it was hilarious

Remember that Cosby show where he harrassed the children? Well I put on a little suit and because I am so small they invited me on but nobody was laughing at my jokes. I guess I'm just, too, particularly smart for them.

I beat my children daily, with a shoe, because I don't want them to grow up fairies. At 9 p.m. I promptly play The Wall in full and walk around the house naked carrying cupcakes. It's important my children see my bits in graphic detail.

Generally speaking, if people are prepared to stick their heads above the power pit, like Zinn says, and absorb what's going on around them, it makes them think.

The society, is, a dishwasher, where all the water, is, dead chipmunk blood. God I'm brilliant.

If we got into a situation where people start burning our records, then bring it on. That's the whole point. The gloaming has begun. We're in the darkness. This has happened before. Go read some history.

Being in a band turns you into a child and keeps you there.

I wrote a lot of stuff quickly: pages and pages of notes that seemed pretty incoherent at first. Most of it was taken from the radio because -suddenly being a parent- I'd be confronted by the radio giving a news report every hour of the day.

I bought a blimp just so I could get a bunch of wankers excited over nothing, what did you do with your weekend?

The whole point of creating music for me is to give voice to things that aren't normally given voice to.

I think no artist can claim to have any access to the truth, or an authentic version of an event. But obviously they have slightly better means at their disposal because they have their art to energize whatever it is they're trying to write about. They have music.

My dad spent his whole life getting into fights for telling what he believed to be the truth. Basically it comes from my dad-and he's screaming right-wing, so there you are.

I don't think young people are as demoralized as the media and government would like us to think. The obvious sign of that is how strong and how close personal connections are and how much people are able to build a life for themselves, despite all this stuff that's been thrown at them.

Hunting Bears is a complex song. A bear, as you know is another term for a chubby chaser. The guitar line is actually the sound of a fat man's thighs rubbing together as he approaches another lardy male for a night of sexual deviance.

I'm banned from Middlebrook elementary for telling dirty jokes to the janitor. The janitor! He cleans up dirt for a living.

You'll go to hell for what your dirty mind is thinking.

I'm Chris Martin with down syndrome

The allegations of me being a pedophile are spurious, at best. However I will admit that taking my knickers off in the park and having an Easter Egg hunt with those apple-cheeked four year olds was in my best interest and not theirs

I think we're entering a very dangerous time. The West has set itself up, decided it's in charge, not for good intentions, not for the benefit of mankind.

Well, my son really loves wildlife. And everytime he draws a polar bear I want to tell him there probably won't any by the time... he's my age. That's kinda hard to deal with.

I've never believed that pop music is escapist trash. There's always a darkness in it, even amidst great pop music.

Look at that fat kid, in the audience. You want some pie you little fatty? I strongly dislike fat kids. Security, please remove him, that fat kid, over there, by the pies.

I've been working hard on a new song, it's titled "Frozen Piggy Pudding". It's about how the government is full of pigs who eat pudding all day. Oh look a frisbee, allo' govna.

I often fake my death and then just show up at people's houses. They say 'that's a good one Thom' but I know maybe they don't really think it's a funny joke.

If I could be any animal I would be a pony because then I could have sex with ponies. Pony, what a funny word. Say it, pony. PO-KNEE. Now ah've made myself giddy with delight. Towards the ponies *laughs*

Mephostopheles is the name of a male gigolo I knew. When he's reaching up to grab me, I suppose it's an erotic bit of poetry.

Sometimes I stand in store windows and pretend to be a mannequin. People are like 'hey, that mannequin looks alot like thom yorke' Then I start to sing The Gloaming and lurch toward them and they run off horrified.

Maybe I'm not the gloaming witches smart, but at least I'm not our stupid liffey hamburger mongrels

I hate to sound self absorbed, but I'm just going to cast out this pearl of wisdom, if I could give the whole world cancer and kill them and be the last man on earth it would be a sign that god loves me especially.

It's impossible being me, I radiate a glow that makes others turn and grimace in horror as if staring into the sun.

Ambition makes you look pretty ugly Kicking and squealing gucci little piggy

I'm not saying my fans are stupid, but I once left a cabbage onstage next to a harmonica and nobody noticed for three hours

The head of state Has called for me by name But I don't have time for him It's gonna be a glorious day I feel my luck could change

As a boy I was a hermit crab, but I soon came out of my shell. Now I am a pincer crab, and soon I will be at my full power as a deadly nuclear lobster.

Hungry Hungry Hippos is so depressing. You continuously chomp away at those balls and you are alone and it's your birthday.'

Have you ever seen any member of radiohead aside from me in public? Do they interact or 'lift' objects? Holograms, all of them. I created them in 1991 using my massive brainpower. Even pitchforkmedia is a product of my brilliant imagination.

I had a dream where my face was a hamburger. What the?

Obviously, the duty of artists is there, but it's more an indictment of the political system that someone like Zinn views artists as the seers, idealizing them as the people responsible for inspiring change.

My nickname in high school was jack-o-lantern because I'm missing 9 teeth

If I could be any famous person, I'd be John Wilkes Booth, because I'd love to shoot Abraham Lincoln in the face

I'm celibate. It's not that I'm a religious or moral person or anything, it's just, if you aren't ****ing Thom Yorke, what's the point? Actually, just kidding, Thom Yorke and I **** all the time. Hehehe. Had you.

At home I've got a very puerile, juvenile sense of humour.

At the KFC there's, lot of black people there innit *laughs*

I'm terrified of lasagna. I think it was to eat ME!

My nickname in grade school was salamander because I have a lazy eye

My nickname in college was talentless midget who has a lazy eye is missing teeth resembles a shaved troll doll because I'm a talentless midget who has a lazy eye is missing teeth resembles a shaved troll dol

I'm horrified of leprechauns. I'm horrified that I might be leprechauns.

I actually saw the loch ness monster when I was 9. She was big as a house. Want to know who the loch ness monster is? It's your obese mother. Burn mother****er

And true love waits In haunted attics And true love lives On lollipops and crisps

I think maybe since there isn't a great deal of access to the mainstream media and people don't understand the language of mainstream media, if you put music out there with lyrics that are loosely political, people absorb some of it and spit it back out.

I can be very drunk in a club in Oxford on a Monday night, and some guy comes up to you and buys you a drink and says that the last record you made changed his life. That means something.

I think sometimes all the charities are doing is mopping up the blood. It's a shame.

I have multiple personalities, but, being a fairly uncreative individual, they are all Thom Yorke.

Us on hard drugs? That would be horrible. We'd probably end up sounding like Bryan Adams.My girlfriend has this quote in her sketchbook: Remain orderly in your life so you can be free and chaotic in your work. I think basically you lose it when you destroy your brain or destroy yourself emotionally or burn yourself up.

Women's underwear section it's like Narnia's wardrobe for my erotic delights.

And I know I'm paranoid and neurotic, I've made a career out of it.

This was something that was obsessing me and creating a writer's block. To get involved and get stuck in, get the proper information about what's going on has really helped.

If there are political programs on TV, yet it takes an artist to actually energize political debate, that tells you something really quite frightening about the level of the political debate happening on mainstream channels - right-wing-biased mothers.

I sometimes have birthday parties for the kids in my neighborhood and then pretend to suggest that I am going to molest them to the parents. It's a hilarious prank even though I am not a paedophile.

The hardest part about being in Radiohead is listening to my own music.

I hate cars. They are so loud, and ugly, and full of toxic exhaust, like radiohead fans.

Do you think Radiohead is my whole goddamn life? I also have a roadside cart where I sell apples and mincemeat pies.

I'm a full grown man and I'm not tall enough to ride a rollercoaster. So I will sit on the teacups, eat my tea and biscuits and reminisce with the cheshire cat who lives in my head. Oh hello Mr. Cheshire, lovely weather this morning. Mr. Cheshire? Oh my god.

Jumped in the river, what did I see? Black-eyed angels swam with me A moonful of stars and astral cars And all the figures I used to see All my lovers were there with me All my past and futures And we all went to heaven in a little row boat There was nothing to fear and nothing to doubt

We toyed with the idea of making it a double album, but I think that would only have confused everybody even more, so we decided to stick with the songs we picked.

Amnesiac was written to make fun of senior citizens with alzheimers. I hate them and I wish they'd die.

Sonic the hedgehog is a beautiful statement on capitalism. You spend your whole life collecting yellow rings and then hit one spike and lose them all. And there is a fat man who wants to kill you.

Yes I usually make my kids eat their veggie chops and watch my concerts in dead silence. If they ask to watch spongebob squarepants I usually do something volatile like make them eat a yellow sponge with googly eyes on it. I hit them quite a bit, but then again I blame the condom manufacturing government for forcing me to birth them.

I'm still not certain on the nature of the spork, whether it is a fork and a spoon, or a fork and a knife mixed together, or maybe a fork and a fork on top. Life is full of mysteries yeah man

My songs are my kids. Some of them stay with me, some others I have to send out, out to the war. It might sound stupid and it might even sound naive, but that's just the way it is.

I don't think I have a superiority complex. I have a "you're not Thom Yorke" complex.

I once got hit with a taser at a concert and everyone thought I was dancing. Now I have to do that dance, at every show for the rest of my life, or admit that a taser can damage the Thom Yorke

Time is running out for us But you just move the hands upon the clock You throw coins in the wishing well For us You just move your hands upon the wall

We're at a time when we are being presented with undeniable changes in the global climate and fundamental issues that affect every single one of us, and it's the time we're listening to the most hokey shite on the radio and watching vacuous bullshit celebrities being vacuous bullshit celebrities and desperately trying to forget about everything. Which is fine, you know, but personally speaking, I can't do that.

I got into the music business thinking it was really radical, that it wasn't really a business at all, that it was a lot of people being artistic and creative. Not true, and it made me very depressed.

I'm a creep. I'm a weirdo. What the hell am I doing here? I don't belong here.

Sometimes the nicest thing to do with a guitar is just look at it.

I had a series of mini-breakdowns where the public persona - this thing, this face, this person who writes this music... I would walk past that person in the mirror or listen to that person playing guitar and I didn't know who they were.

15 Step is about how if you have mental illness and try to dance you look very funny. Whenever you see me dancing on stage, I'm imitating the mentally ill.

2+2=5 wasn't intentional. I thought you carry a 1 every time there are two 2's in an equation. I'm not stupid, the mathematicians is stupid

All of our saddest songs have somewhere in them at least a glimmer of resolve - Street Spirit has no resolve. It is the dark tunnel without the light at the end.

Almost every song on OK Computer revolves around how I am afraid computers get up at night and attempt to choke me with their wires.*doesn't laugh*

Alot of my lyrics are about beating my children. 'Hit the bottom and escape' is a cry for help. oh god someone stop me

Americans are ugly unwashed clods that live off of government cheese. If I could, I'd take every living American, grind them up into a fine paste and use that paste to feed the dolphins, because they are neglected by the evil Americans.

And if the world does turn, and if London burns, I'll be standing on the beach with my guitar. I want to be in a band, when I get to Heaven. Anyone can play guitar, and they won't be a nothing anymore...

And I'm sorry for us The dinosaurs roam the earth The sky turns green

And the moral of the story is I'm Thom Yorke.

And then computers got to a point where you could just record directly into them. So when that happened, funny enough, I thought, Right, I'm going to learn how to do this because then I can understand that part.

Anybody can make 'good' music. I make terrible music, which is what makes it so different, and therefore better.

Are you feeling lucky? Cause I'm on a roll.

Are you such a dreamer To put the world to rights? I'll stay home forever Where two and two always makes a five I'll lay down the tracks Sandbag and hide January has April's showers And two and two always makes a five It's the devil's way now There is no way out You can SCREAM and you can shout It is too late now Because... You have not been Payin' attention! Payin' attention! Payin' attention! Payin' attention! You have not been paying attention!

At a better pace Slower and more calculated No chance of escape

Build gaps in your life. Pauses. Proper pauses.

Bulletproof is about the fact that I was shot in the face and survived. Nah I'm joking that'd be grisly and awful.

Can you imagine a world in which the letter O does not exist? My name would be Thm Yrke. Think about that.

Chicken Little change my life when I was younger. I had no idea chickens could talk *laughs*.

Cigarrettes make you look cool

Do not tell me what I can and cannot do. I'll be as asian as I want to (Stretches his eyes in a racist manner).

Don't get any big ideas, They're not gonna happen.

Drying up in conversation, You will be the one who cannot talk, All your insides fall to pieces, You just sit there wishing you could still make love.

Every Christmas people are so nice to me, they think I am Little Tim from A Christmas Story. But I'm not. *smiles*

Every move you make has already been done, and taken the piss out of.