“The popularity of punk rock was, in effect, due to the fact that it made ugliness beautiful.”
— Malcolm McLaren
“Punk is musical freedom. It’s saying, doing and playing what you want. In Webster’s terms, ‘nirvana’ means freedom from pain, suffering and the external world, and that’s pretty close to my definition of Punk Rock.”
— Kurt Cobain
“A guy walks up to me and asks ‘What’s Punk?’ So I kick over a garbage can and say ‘That’s punk!’ So he kicks over a garbage can and says ‘That’s punk?’ and I say ‘No, that’s trendy!’”
- Billie Joe Armstrong
“[Punk] was something which brought people together, so they realized something was possible”
- Pete Shelley
“Punk was defined by an attitude rather than a musical style.”
- David Byrne
“I think punk rock, especially for me, was a big middle finger to this whole talent thing.”
- Mike Watt
“At its best New Wave/punk represents a fundamental and age-old Utopian dream: that if you give people the license to be as outrageous as they want in absolutely any fashion they can dream up, they’ll be creative about it, and do something good besides.”
- Lester Bangs
“I think what we took away from first hearing about the punk stuff in England and then the early American punk stuff was a sense of self-definition and also sort of playing music for music’s sake and being part of a family for family’s sake.”
- Ian MacKaye
“Undermine their pompous authority, reject their moral standards, make anarchy and disorder your trademarks. Cause as much chaos and disruption as possible but don’t let them take you alive.”
- Sid Vicious
“Punk rock is just another word for freedom.”
- Patti Smith