Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being.

In order to exist, man must rebel, but rebellion must respect the limits that it discovers in itself – limits where minds meet, and in meeting, begin to exist.

Unlike grown ups, children have little need to deceive themselves.

I grew up listening to the Police, I grew up performing in bars, singing Police songs.

We were all on this ship in the sixties, our generation, a ship going to discover the New World. And the Beatles were in the crow’s nest of that ship.

I just want to go through Central Park and watch folks passing by. Spend the whole day watching people. I miss that.

You can rebel in different ways. Civil disobedience is rebelling. As long as it’s peaceful, of course.

I look at other people’s lives, and some people feel like they’re too old to play with toys. But I still go through the toy section at the store, ‚cause there were toys that I wanted when I was little that I couldn’t have. So I still get them.

I’ve always been fascinated with the stealing of innocence. It’s the most heinous crime, and certainly a capital crime if there ever was one.

My childhood was endless – from eight to 18 felt like hundreds of years.

A good song never gets old.

Letters are something from you. It’s a different kind of intention than writing an e-mail.

Memory… is the diary that we all carry about with us.

I never expected anyone to take care of me, but in my wildest dreams and juvenile yearnings, I wanted the house with the picket fence from June Allyson movies. I knew that was yearning like one yearns to fly.

Going home helps the content.

Nothing could make me forget what the Reagan years had actually been like.

I loved cowboy movies when I was a kid. When I was five years old, I was already wearing a cowboy hat and suit. When I grew up, I knew John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Kirk Douglas and so on.

I like to reminisce with people I don’t know.

In ‚Changeling,‘ I tried to show something you’d never see nowadays – a kid sitting and looking at the radio. Just sitting in front of the radio and listening. Your mind does the rest.

It doesn’t take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound cause.

I used to live on one candy bar a day – it cost a nickel. I always remember the candy bar was called Payday. That was my payday. And that candy bar tasted so good, at night I would take one bite, and it was so beautiful.

The innocence of childhood is like the innocence of a lot of animals.

Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home!

Occasionally, I hanker for the time when I sold more records, but I don’t sit and drool about it. When I do look at early footage of Talking Heads, I realise I was just a wreck.

I’m happy that I have my family, and I’m happy that I had Virginia, where I grew up, to retreat to any time I felt overwhelmed. Whenever there were times when I felt like the rug was being pulled out from under me and I was floating in this crazy space, I would stop and go back to that neighborhood and realize nothing’s changed, really.

I’ve always liked older ladies, ever since my mother would have B’nai B’rith at our house.

I guess that’s one of the things about growing up in the fifties – it never occurred to me that you wouldn’t be at least as successful as your parents.

Some of my foster families used to send me to the movies to get me out of the house and there I’d sit all day and way into the night. Up in front, there with the screen so big, a little kid all alone, and I loved it. I loved anything that moved up there and I didn’t miss anything that happened and there was no popcorn either.

Akron, Ohio, is my home. It will always be remembered. Akron, Ohio, is my life.

Fashion is inspired by youth and nostalgia and draws inspiration from the best of the past.

Whoever blushes is already guilty; true innocence is ashamed of nothing.

It is sadder to find the past again and find it inadequate to the present than it is to have it elude you and remain forever a harmonious conception of memory.

When you’re thirteen and listening to punk, the aggressive nature of music can sway you to the dark side.

I long remained a child, and I am still one in many respects.

There’s something about pulling out a real tape from a shelf and looking at it and knowing that ‚Everlong‘ is on it, or ‚Best of You‘ is on it, and it’s really special.

I used to really love Fiend, but he stopped. He just stopped. Every time he had a project, every project – ‚There’s One In Every Family,‘ ‚Street Life‘ – I had to have them. And he just stopped. And that was disappointing, ‚cause that was my favorite rapper at one time.

Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle.

I never needed much, and I never thought I’d get more than what I had. A trip to Burger King was the biggest thing in the world to me. Heaven.

When I was five – it’s not even bad – I stole a sweet from the sweet shop.

But I did ‚Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.‘ They made a cereal out of it, so once you’ve had a cereal, it doesn’t get much more surreal than that. Surreal cereal.

Even when I was a kid, everything I had was the best.

I listen to my old records and I think, ‚How did I ever get on the radio?‘

My goal in music is to create nostalgic moments.

There is a piece of me that likes to fondly imagine my maverick and rebellious nature. But, more accurately, I like to have a nice and cosy institution that I can rub up against a little bit.

Rather leave the crime of the guilty unpunished than condemn the innocent.

Anyone who’s looked into a newborn’s innocent eyes should realize how incredible it is to be blessed with a new life.

It is easy to say how we love new friends, and what we think of them, but words can never trace out all the fibers that knit us to the old.

When you’re a little kid, you don’t see color, and the fact that my friends were black never crossed my mind. It never became an issue until I was a teenager and started trying to rap.

I don’t dislike any of my exes. If I took time to form a relationship, it’s gonna hurt when we move on, but are you puttin‘ White-Out over all that beautiful time together? That was real time in your life. It’s connected to where you are today.

I just miss – I miss being anonymous.

Memories are the key not to the past, but to the future.

There are so many memories for me in Manchester. Everywhere I go, I think, ‚I used to have boutiques here, clubs there, restaurants in that area.‘

It’s true the punk fashion itself was iconographic: rips and dirt, safety pins, zips, slogans, and hairstyles. These motifs were so iconic in themselves – motifs of rebellion.

I thought it was magic to be able to catch something identically on tape and then be able to play around with it, run it backwards; I thought that was great for years.

Poetry is the lifeblood of rebellion, revolution, and the raising of consciousness.

I still close my eyes and go home – I can always draw from that.

‚Border‘ was the first movie that I watched on the big screen. It always takes me back to my childhood.

‚9 to 5,‘ that little song, that little story, just won’t ever end. Just like ‚I Will Always Love You,‘ it just keeps comin‘ back, popping up its head in one way or another.

We can not play innocents abroad in a world that is not innocent.

The most interesting information comes from children, for they tell all they know and then stop.

Every time I come to Europe, I’m just as excited as I was my very first time, which was many, many years ago. I love that part of the world, and I especially love the fans.