A Quote by Billy Idol

When I started out, everyone seemed to be adopting these names... Johnny Rotten, Sid Vicious. I wasn't really Rotten or Vicious or Nasty, so I wanted something a bit more funny - yet something that seemed real rock 'n' roll... something that acknowledged my ambition.

Billy Idol

Quote Topics

Funny Acknowledged Adopting Ambition Bit Everyone Johnny Johnny Rotten More My Ambition Names Nasty Out Real Really Rock Roll Rotten Seemed Something Started Vicious Wanted

Quote Author

Billy Idol
British - Musician
Born: November 30, 1955

No matter what Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious do, they can't be more disgusting than The Rolling Stones are in an orgy of biting.

Mick Jagger

I was in the top 10 rock n' roll artists - up there with Sid Vicious. I always had that edge.

Lee Ryan

WESTBURY, a nasty odious rotten-borough, a really rotten place.

William Cobbett

I never met Johnny Rotten, and I didn't want to meet Johnny Rotten.

Eric Clapton

It's better to fade away like an old soldier than to burn out. I don't appreciate worship of dead Sid Vicious or of dead James Dean or of dead John Wayne. It's the same thing. Making Sid Vicious a hero, Jim Morrison - it's garbage to me. I worship the people who survive. Gloria Swanson, Greta Garbo.

John Lennon

I was doing experimental theater and experimental film in San Francisco, and I moved to Los Angeles, and what I got frustrated with was, it seemed like everyone was waiting for something to happen. Obviously, films take a lot of planning, and I wanted something more immediate, and comedy started to become that.

Amy Seimetz

People perceive punk rock in the sense of Sid Vicious, all strung-out, crazy and insane.

Hayley Williams

A vicious teacher is just a vicious teacher, as a vicious neighbor may happen to be. But a vicious mother - means that the whole world is vicious.

Simon Soloveychik

Good rock 'n' roll is something that makes you feel alive. It's something that's human, and I think that most music today isn't. ... To me good rock 'n' roll also encompasses other things, like Hank Williams and Charlie Mingus and a lot of things that aren't strictly defined as rock 'n' roll. Rock 'n' roll is an attitude, it's not a musical form of a strict sort. It's a way of doing things, of approaching things. Writing can be rock 'n' roll, or a movie can be rock 'n' roll. It's a way of living your life.

Lester Bangs

I never had the idea of moving to Paris and becoming something. I liked the idea of living in Paris because it seemed to have so many parts of life I really enjoyed. The people there seemed to prize literature and art, food and drinking, a more hedonistic way of living. My ambition was to be cosmopolitan. I grew up in the suburbs. I went to college in Maine. I had a dream in my head that if you wanted to be the most urbane, living-life-to-the-fullest kind of person, Paris was the place to be.

Rosecrans Baldwin

Sid Vicious began the age of participation in which everyone could be the artist. Sid proved that you don't have to play well to be the star. You can play badly, or not even at all. I endorsed that attitude. If you can't write songs, no problem - simply steal one and change it to your taste.

Malcolm Mclaren

But even in her laughter there was something missing. She never seemed to be truly happy; she just seemed to be passing time while she waited for something else. She was tired of just existing; she wanted to live.

Cecelia Ahern

When you're rotten about yourself, you become rotten to everyone else, even those you love.

Mitch Albom

War is a nasty, dirty, rotten business. It's all right for the Navy to blockade a city, to starve the inhabitants to death. But there is something wrong, not nice, about bombing that city.

Sir Arthur Harris, 1st Baronet

These days, rock 'n' roll is much more about rock than about roll. I don't do rock. But I'm interested in that roll part, because that's the funny little bit that makes it hip.