- “The American public really does have a death wish for me; they want me to die. I’m not going to die.”
- “I turned 46 yesterday! I am not playing Teenage Whore.”
- “People hate her, they really do. Did you know that to Yoko someone is a verb in America? It is something that boys say if they’re hanging out with you too much and they’re going to school or they have a band. It’s almost a myth that’s used to suppress women. Y’know, ‘You’re gonna Yoko me. You’re gonna destroy me.’ And this woman put up with racial inequality from Fleet Street, she put up with being accused of breaking up the best band in the world, she put up with people’s idea that she castrated this man and then, worst of all, she had her best friend, her husband, the person she lived for, die in her arms in front of a fortress that she’d hidden herself in for 20 years. And I just feel that the world media should apologize to her because she handled it with so much dignity.” [on Yoko Ono]
- “To be quite honest, I got into it. It was very semiotic about my delinquency. I studied it. I learned a lot. I’d grown up with no discipline and I learned a lot about denial. It did not have an adverse affect on me.” [on Juvenile Detention]
- “I’m really determined to be a source of strength and inspiration to anyone who’s really been to the bottom of hell and lived to tell and come back again, as an integrated whole person who celebrates my own flaws and is non-judgmental of others’ wounds or craziness.”
- “You can be fat and strip. I’d strip at Jumbo’s Clown Room. Or I’d work in the day at the Seventh Veil. I didn’t have a gimmick. I see girls now who are trying to be alternative. They won’t make a dime. You’ve got to have the white pumps, pink bikini, fuckin’ hairpiece, pink lipstick. Gold and tan and white. If you even try and slip a little of yourself in there you won’t make any money.”
- “Credibility is credibility. All these labels signing everything that moves because they think they can purchase credibility. They think they can market it. And I say, let them try. Why do I want what I mean? You have to give yourself some bogus-sincere nineties little reason about what it is that’s making you go. And mine is influence.”
- “I’m offended every time I see George Bush on TV!”
- “You wanna live the dream? You do what you want, on your terms. It’s just a matter of authenticity, and meaning it, man.”
- “I want every fucking girl in the world to pick up a guitar and start screaming.”
- “I would like to think – in my heart of hearts – that I’m changing some psychosexual aspects of rock music. Not that I’m so desirable. I didn’t do the kinder-whore thing because I thought I was so hot. When I see the look used to make one more appealing – when I see a 14-year-old girl in a fanzine acting like she’s 9, it pisses me off. When I started, it was a What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? thing. My angle was irony.”
- “The addiction to the idea of ‘perfection’ has infested my life in the past, and I’m over it. It’s never, thank God, infected my music, but it has affected my outward appearance and self-esteem.”
- “I very rarely write about one theme or one subject. I end up getting bored with that theme and write something else halfway through the rest of the song, and finish the song with a different idea.”
- “I like there to be some testosterone in rock, and it’s like I’m the one in the dress who has to provide it.”
- “I’m so proud of myself, I worked with anger; with the darkest thing in the world.”
- “You can’t please everyone. I don’t care if I get criticized. I don’t give a shit if I get a bad review. I don’t care if people say I’m a bitch, or obnoxious, ’cause (I know) I am.”
- “My keyboard is sticky. There’s a cigarette burn on it. There’s some baby applesauce on it. It’s literally a sticky, fucked-up keyboard. My y doesn’t work.”
- “I’m offended every time I see George Bush on TV!”
- “In rock stardom there’s an absolute economic upside to self-destruction.”
- “I should just stop trying to correct people’s impressions.”
- “Drugs have nothing to do with the creation of music. In fact, they are dumb and self indulgent. Kind of like sucking your thumb!”
- “But, you know, all good rock is easy.”
- “Being offended is part of being in the real world.”
- “Don’t be bitter and mean ‘cause you don’t fit in, it’s a gift. Look at you. You’ve got your individuality, you don’t have the herd instinct, you can read Nietzsche and understand it. Only dumb people are happy.”
- “I cannot exist as a solo artist.”
- “I don’t think you can ever do too much. Life would be so boring if you didn’t have these, like, holes to fall into and climb out of. I want to do everything. I just want everything. I don’t think you can ever have too much.”
- “Don’t date the captain of the football team, BE the captain of the football team.”
- “Being a rock star is like being a cult leader – you really have to be in your own religion.”
- “I can turn on the radio right now and be inspired.”
- “I don’t need plastic in my body to validate me as a woman.”
- “I like to behave in an extremely normal, wholesome manner for the most part in my daily life. Even if mentally I’m consumed with sick visions of violence, terror, sex and death.”
- “This is Miss World, which is a good video; it’s directed by Sophie Muller, who worked with Gwen Stefani on their song “Don’t Speak”. What a fucking dumb song. Singing? I hate that song! I’m not angry at her – the group is okay – but the song sucks! You know, it’s the end of that thing that bothers me; “Hush, hush darlin’, hush, hush..”. So weird. Bad as 80s pop. “
- “I used to do drugs, but don’t tell anyone or it will ruin my image.”
- “I’m driven. I am. I’m driven for some reason. But I don’t know where I’m going.”
- “You little fuckers! We’re Hole, fuck you!”
- “Um, I have no fuckin’ desire to be in a band with fuckin’ pussies.”
- “I’m alright. I’ve got Joni Mitchell playing in my pocket”
- “Quote Reznor in the same sentence as my husband and I’ll find you at your fucking community college and hack all your grades to Fs, okay?”
- “I have no intention of dying young and being some stinking rock’n'roll person.”
- “When I see 16 year-olds waiting for me, I just want to spank them and give them guitars and tell them to start bands. It’s a bummer that girls have to respond to rock artists sexually instead of, like, ‘wow, me too!’.”
- “Somebody wrote, ‘how can she rock in a Versace gown?’, and, it’s like, ‘well, easy, let me show you.’”
- “You wanna put it in me? I’m not a woman! I’m a fucking force of nature! Your dick will fly right off!”
