Punk Quotes

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  Rap music is the only vital form of music introduced since punk rock.

  Kurt Cobain

  Rap, Rocks, Form

  M.E.A.T Magazine, September 1991.

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• To me, punk rock is the freedom to create, freedom to be successful, freedom to not be successful, freedom to be who you are. It's freedom.

  Patti Smith

  Successful, Rocks, Be Who You Are

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• I created Punk for this day and age. Do you see Britney walking around wearing ties and singing punk? Hell no. That's what I do. I'm like a Sid Vicious for a new generation.

  Avril Lavigne

  Motivational, Birthday, Walking Away

  "Blitzkrieg Bot: Watch Some Robots Cover The Ramones" by Josh Kurp, uproxx.com. February 27, 2013.

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• There are a lot of bands who claim to be punk and they only play the music, they have no clue what it's all about. It's a lifestyle. It's not about popularity and all that crap.

  Billie Joe Armstrong

  Play, Band, Clue

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• Punk is not just the sound, the music. Punk is a lifestyle.

  Billie Joe Armstrong

  Sound, Lifestyle, Punk Music

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• The whole punk ethic was do-it-yourself, and I've always been very literal, especially as a kid. When they said that anybody can do this, I was like, 'OK, that's me.'

  Michael Stipe

  Kids, Ethics, Said

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• Punk is musical freedom. It's saying, doing and playing what you want. In Webster's terms, 'nirvana' means freedom from pain, suffering and the external world, and that's pretty close to my definition of Punk Rock.

  Kurt Cobain

  Pain, Mean, Rocks

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• A guy walks up to me and asks, "What's Punk?". So I kick over a garbage can and say. "That's punk!". So he kicks over the garbage can and says, "That's Punk?", and I say, "No that's trendy!

  Billie Joe Armstrong

  Garbage Cans, Guy, Trendy

  "Green Day: Keeping Their Edge". Book by Matt Doeden (p. 23), 2006.

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• Punk gave me the strength to think, "Yeah, you can stand up and be counted, and do what you want in life, and not be hoodwinked by it all," in a simple, very general sweeping way.

  Steve Diggle

  Simple, Thinking, Want

  Source: pitchfork.com

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• I come from the home-grown punk ethic, where it doesn't matter if you can't play a note, it's how you communicate.

  Siobhan Fahey

  Home, Play, Matter

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• The thing about punk is that there are purists. Once you start going outside of that, they don't think what you're doing is punk rock.

  Billie Joe Armstrong

  Thinking, Rocks, Punk Rock

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• People ask me: ‘What is punk? How do you define punk?' Here's how I define punk: It's a free space. It could be called jazz. It could be called hip-hop. It could be called blues, or rock, or beat. It could be called techno. It's just a new idea. For me, it was punk rock. That was my entrance to this idea of the new ideas being able to be presented in an environment that wasn't being dictated by a profit motive.

  Ian MacKaye

  Rocks, Ideas, Space

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• What we get in punk these days are layers of 'anti-', and so many of them are so self-serving. It's not about larger freedom.

  Geoff Rickly

  Self, Layers, These Days

  Source: pitchfork.com

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• Punk is not dead. Punk will only die when corporations can exploit and mass produce it.

  Jello Biafra

  Corporations, Produce, Mass

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• Don't let these tattoos fool you. I'm straight edge. I'm a man of great discipline; I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't do drugs... my addiction is wrestling - my obsession is competition. Discipline. My name is C...M...Punk.

  CM Punk

  Inspiring, Tattoo, Wrestling

  "Extreme Championship Wrestling", July 4, 2006.

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• I'm just starting to scratch the surface of what really makes me happy and it's taken me a while to admit that acting like a little child and being a jerk and a punk is fun.

  Leonardo DiCaprio

  Being Happy, Children, Fun

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• Looking back on the production of 'Nevermind,' I'm embarrassed by it now.' It's closer to a Motley Crue record than it is a punk rock record.

  Kurt Cobain

  Rocks, Records, Embarrassed

  "The Nevermind You've Never Heard" by Seth Colter Walls, www.slate.com. September 27, 2011.

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• At its best new wave/punk represents a fundamental and age-old Utopian dream: that if you give people the license to be as outrageous as they want in absolutely any fashion they can dream up, they'll be creative about it, and do something good besides.

  Lester Bangs

  Dream, Fashion, People

  New Musical Express (December 1977), as quoted in "Various Artists: No Thanks!: The 70s Punk Rebellion" by Eric Carr, pitchfork.com. February 10, 2004.

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• I don't think punk ever really dies, because punk rock attitude can never die.

  Billy Idol

  Attitude, Thinking, Rocks

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• (Punk rock is) lunging after some glimpse of a new and better world.

  Lester Bangs

  Rocks, Glimpse, World

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• I was a punk. I think that's why I'm such a good person now, because I was such a bad guy then.

  Adam Oates

  Thinking, Guy, Good Person

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• The problem is we moved to LA... The only way to be punk rock in L.A. is to be a Republican.

  Trey Parker

  Rocks, Way, Republican

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• I've always been spiritual but I've never had a proper context, and it took me awhile to find the proper context. It's hard to realize you can have any kind of relationship with God you want...and so I now have a punk rock relationship with God.

  Billy Corgan

  Spiritual, Rocks, Want

  Interview with Julianne Escobedo Shepherd, pitchfork.com. June 12, 2005.

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• Punk rock is a word used by dilettantes and heartless manipulators about music that takes up the energies, the bodies, the hearts, the souls, the time and the minds of young men who give everything they have to it.

  Iggy Pop

  Heart, Men, Rocks

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• I like the bad-boy types. Generally the guy I'm attracted to is the guy in the club with all the tattoos and nail polish. He's usually the lead singer in a punk band and plays guitar. But my serious boyfriends are relatively clean-cut, nice guys. So it's strange.

  Megan Fox

  Tattoo, Nice, Cutting

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