Top 66 Morrissey Quotes

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

Not everybody is absolutely stupid. Why on earth would I be racist, what would I be trying to achieve?

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.

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

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

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

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.

I swim when I can but I don’t work out.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

I hated the royal wedding.

Pop music has progressed.

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.

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.

Let lying dogs sleep is something I always say in reference to the Smiths.

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.

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 normally live in Los Angeles, if you can call it normally living.

Often I feel I say too much.

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

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.

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 iron anything. Never have and never will.

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.

You are bound to pick up influences.

I still prefer horses to human beings.

I always seem to be singing against the grain.

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

The Queen is the ultimate dictator.

I do think it’s possible to go through life and never fall in love, or find someone who loves you.

Killing a stag is like killing a child. What’s the difference?

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

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

People don’t like me.

I think we were all initially swept along with the Obama win, but he’s proven to be simply a set of teeth, and useless in every other regard.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

The solo years have been more meaningful to the audiences than the Smiths years, but the press in England only write about me in relation to the Smiths era.

All of us, ultimately, we’re not that interesting, when it comes down to it.

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.

I know I will never have a hit single in America.

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

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.

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.

Reggae is vile.

I’m capable of looking on the bright side. I just don’t do it very often.

I feel undefinable actually.

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.

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

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

Everything about my life is private, really. I’m not so sure that any of it has ever been public.

I’ve never intended to be controversial, but it’s very easy to be controversial in pop music because nobody ever is.

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

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