Iggy Pop Quotes

“A lot of young musicians get the money at the wrong time. They get it for something they don’t feel great about, and it’ll make you feel so bad it’ll destroy you and kill you.”

“Bowie's a real man, and I'm a real woman – just like Catherine Deneuve.”

“Cigarettes and coffee, man, that's a combination.”

“Curious is a good thing to be, it seems to pay some unexpected dividends.”

“DMT was a gaseous wax that you could smoke that gave you a 20-minute psychedelic high. You'd inhale it. And then when you'd exhale — poof, you'd be high.

I saw Buddha, man. I know that sounds like no big deal. But I saw a gigantic holographic Buddha — correct in every way!

Buddhas can be very intricate — these drawings that you see in books. Thousands of details were included in this Buddha.

Where did they come from? I didn't make them up. I can't even draw, you know? I could barely spell cat, you know? And there it was. And I thought, Wow — the power of the mind, you know?”

“How am I going to listen to that horrible noise I make without a gram of coke and a couple of double Jack Daniels?”

“I don't get my bliss by listening over and over to people in the street thinking, "Boy, is it that good?" Even though every time I hear it that's what I think.

But I get it in human situations. There is this little voice that is going: The reason you're able to enjoy your life now is that you made it in rock'n'roll and people are giving you free visas all over the place. Dude, you are being spoiled.”

“I feel a great comfort and relief knowing that there are others who lived and died and thought and fought so long ago; I feel less tyrannized by the present day.”

“I like music that's more offensive. I like it to sound like nails on a blackboard, get me wild.”

“I never believed that U2 wanted to save the whales. I don't believe that The Beastie Boys are ready to lay it down for Tibet.”

“I never say never about anything.”

“I smoked this joint and then it hit me. I thought, what you gotta do is play your own simply blues.”

“I think that all the years of exposure to amps and electricity has altered my body chemistry.”

“I think that prosecuting some college kid because she shared a file is a lot like sending somebody to Australia 200 years ago for poaching his lordship's rabbit.

That's how it must seem to poor people who just want to watch a crappy movie for free after they’ve been working themselves to death all day at Tesco or whatever, you know.”

“I was a pretty nice kid. Kind of quiet, but quiet in terms I wasn't going out and setting fire to anything. I had a big mouth and I was creative type, you know.”

“I'm a little bit damaged in about 15 different ways, and it's been nice that no particular damaged area has become a major issue.

I'm a more than moderately healthy 65-year-old male who has gotten away with a lot of stuff.”

“I'm glad I am crazy, it keeps me trying. I despise trendies, I know they're lying.”

“I'm not ashamed to dress 'like a woman' because I don't think it's shameful to be a woman.”

“I'm not the kind of person that likes to be dependent.”

“I've probably been spit on more that any person alive outside of, I would say, a member of the prison system.”

“If I had to depend on what I actually get from sales, I'd be tending bar between sets.”

“If I started thinking too much about how influential I've been, then I'd be more of a turd than I already am.”

“If you give a good performance, something that gets some feeling across to people, that’s such a rare gift. It’s underestimated at this point in history, when the music biz is inevitably turning into a kind of politics.”

“In 1965, when great young white artists in the English-speaking world were successfully re-channeling hillbilly and black music – you know Bob Dylan, Ray Davies, Pete Townsend, Keith Richards – they didn't get any money at first. They were all broke.”

“It is very important what not to do.”

“It's fair to say that I have a side that is prudent and a side that is not.”

“It's more fun to look at an old picture of me than it is to look at a new one sometimes. Although, I still wear a dress pretty well.”

“Music is life, and life is not a business.”

“My general take on American music since 1969 is that it's just getting stiffer and people are getting more uptight – audience, performance, and palace guard.”

“Nihilism is best done by professionals.”