Morrissey Quotes

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.

- Morrissey

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.

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

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.

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

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.

- Morrissey

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.

- Morrissey

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.

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

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.

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

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.

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

You have to, at least from a distance, look as if you know what you're doing, and I can manage that.

- Morrissey

It's so tedious that everyone must be defined.

- Morrissey

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.

- Morrissey

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.

- Morrissey

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.

- Morrissey

I always seem to be singing against the grain.

- Morrissey

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.

- Morrissey

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.

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

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.

- Morrissey

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.

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

Reggae is vile.

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

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.

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

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.

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

Well, I'm a Catholic by birth and you can never shed it.

- Morrissey

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.

- Morrissey

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.

- Morrissey

My talents do not lie in DIY.

- Morrissey

I didn't really see the British punk movement, if that's what it was, as wildly original, because I had been listening so intently to all the New York music since 1973, really.

- Morrissey

I'm cursed with the gift of foresight.

- Morrissey

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.

- Morrissey

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.

- Morrissey

I am slightly shocked to have gone as far as I have.

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

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.

- Morrissey

Those Catholics, they really nab you when you're young.

- Morrissey

Pop music has progressed.

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

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.

- Morrissey

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.

- Morrissey

Artists aren't really people. I'm actually 40 per cent papier mache.

- Morrissey

Artists aren't really people. And I'm actually 40 per cent papier mache.

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

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.

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

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.

- Morrissey

I hated the royal wedding.

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

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.

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

I don't iron anything. Never have and never will.

- Morrissey

If you love animals, obviously it doesn't make sense to hurt them.

- Morrissey

Life's full of tricky snakes and ladders.

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

I still prefer horses to human beings.

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

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.

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

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.

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

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.

- Morrissey

Peru, Peru. My heart's lighthouse.

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

You are bound to pick up influences.

- Morrissey

I don't necessarily think that the world should know everything, and even if you consider yourself to be extremely honest, that doesn't mean you have to blurt everything out all the time.

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

Age gives you a great sense of proportion. You can be very hard on yourself when you're younger but now I just think 'well everybody's absolutely mad and I'm doing quite well'.

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

Obviously Madonna reinforces everything absurd and offensive.

- Morrissey

It's always nice to receive a compliment.

- Morrissey

The Queen is the ultimate dictator.

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

You can't help but feel that the Chinese are a subspecies.

- Morrissey

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.

- Morrissey

Smiths songs certainly have an astonishing afterlife.

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

Often I feel I say too much.

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

I feel undefinable actually.

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

I don't even know if I exist offstage.

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey

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

- Morrissey