Joey Ramone
All punk is is attitude. That's what makes it. The attitude.Collection: Attitude
The thing about school is that if you're forced into learning stuff, you're not going to be into it.Collection: Learning
To me, punk is about being an individual and going against the grain and standing up and saying 'This is who I am'.
I enjoyed my life when I had nothing... and kinda like the idea of just being happy with me.
I'd just sit with Dee Dee on the corner off of Queens Boulevard and drink and insult people and stuff. That's when I got kicked out of my house. My mother told me it was for my own good.
When I was a kid growing up in the '60s, music was an outlet for enlightenment, frustration, rebellion. It was more about individualism. Today it's just like a big business.
The first record I bought may have been Del Shannon's 'Runaway.'
It was the glitter days, and the New York Dolls and Kiss would come play at the Coventry, all those bands would come in from Manhattan.
The Eagles and the Captain and Tennille ruled the airwaves, and we were the answer to it.
For better or worse, MTV sort of bridges the whole country together almost like the BBC does in England. It's opened up everything so wide that it's possible for everyone to have different ideas.
Well, I think we're the greatest rock 'n' roll band in the world.
The Ramones own the fountain of youth. Experiencing us is like having the fountain of youth.
We always stayed true to what the Ramones are.
Everybody's just emulated us and now everybody just kinda takes our sound as their foundations.
To me, John Lennon and Elvis Presley were punks, because they made music that evoked those emotions in people.
Rock n' roll is very special to me. It's my lifeblood.
When a band like Blondie re-forms, you wish them the best.
I mean, like, rock n' roll was always about spirit and fun.
There's nobody as good as the Ramones, never will be.
When I was hitching, I'd be completely decked out. I used to wear this custom-made black jumpsuit, these, like, pink, knee-high platform boots, all kinds of rhinestones, lots of dangling belts and gloves.
One day I got a phone call, and Johnny and Dee Dee asked me if I wanted to join their band. I said, 'Yeah.'
When Dee Dee would start singing, he would stop playing the guitar, because he couldn't sing and play at the same time.
They asked me to sing - actually, it was Dee Dee, because he had seen me in Sniper and thought I wasn't like anybody else. Everybody else was doing an Iggy or a Mick Jagger.
Forest Hills was a middle-class neighborhood filled with snobby rich people and their screaming brats.
I remember being turned on to The Beach Boys, hearing 'Surfin' U.S.A.,' I guess, in 1960. But The Beatles really did it to me.
Nobody picked up guns in those days. You put on music, and it made you feel great.
For me, punk is about real feelings. It's not about, 'Yeah, I am a punk and I'm angry.' That's a lot of crap. It's about loving the things that really matter: passion, heart and soul.Collection: Real
Play before you get good, because by the time you get good, you're too old to playCollection: Life
Life to me is an adventure and you've got to experience everything.Collection: Adventure
What they teach you in school doesn't prepare you for life. Textbooks don't compare to living in the real world. Rock and roll teaches you how to live.Collection: Real
If your not in it you're out of it.Collection: Ifs
Lack of skill dictates economy of style.Collection: Skills
I've done a lot of living and a lot of adventuring and I think that's very healthy, ya know. And I think everybody should adventure life 'cos that's what life is, it's for adventuring. You gotta know what you wanna do with your life. And you gotta know when you have something special and you don't wanna blow it.Collection: Adventure
Well, weight you can always lose, but hair you can't get back.Collection: Hair
I hate to blow the mystique, but at the time we really liked bubblegum music, and we really liked the Bay City Rollers. Their song 'Saturday Night' had a great chant in it, so we wanted a song with a chant in it: 'Hey! Ho! Let's Go!'. 'Blitzkrieg Bop' was our 'Saturday Night'.Collection: Song
Hang in there. If you believe what you're doing is unique. Otherwise give up or sound like Nirvana or Pearl Jam.Collection: Giving Up
We decided to start our own group because we were bored with everything we heard... Everything was 10th-generation Led Zeppelin... Overproduced, or just junk. We missed music like it used to be.Collection: Bored
Marriage is worse than dying. Why stay with one person for fifty years? We advise against marriage.Collection: Marriage
I think it's a nice payback. There aren't many people that kind of give back to artists that were their inspiration. Most people think they're . . . they're very self bloated.Collection: Nice