Quotes from Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991

Michael Azerrad ·  522 pages

Rating: (11.4K votes)


“Rock'n'roll is a teenage sport, meant to be played by teenagers of all ages--they could be 15, 25 or 35. It all boils down to whether they've got the love in their hearts, that beautiful teenage spirit... -Calvin Johnson”
― Michael Azerrad, quote from Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991


“Los Angeles wasn’t a sun-splashed utopia anymore—it was an alienated, smog-choked sprawl rife with racial and class tensions, recession, and stifling boredom.”
― Michael Azerrad, quote from Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991


“Music can inspire people to wake up and say, ‘Somebody’s lying.’ This is the point I’d like to make with my music,” Watt told Rolling Stone in 1985. “Make you think about what’s expected of you, of your friends. What’s expected of you by your boss. Challenge those expectations. And your own expectations. Man, you should challenge your own ideas about the world every day.”
― Michael Azerrad, quote from Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991


“Boon and Watt had the bad—or perhaps good—fortune to come of age during one of rock’s most abject periods. “That Seventies stuff, the Journey, Boston, Foreigner stuff, it was lame,” Watt says. “If it weren’t for those type of bands we never would have had the nerve to be a band. But I guess you need bad things to make good things. It’s like with farming—if you want to grow a good crop, you need a lot of manure.”
― Michael Azerrad, quote from Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991


“I’m not religious about God,” Boon agreed, “I’m religious about Man.” “We believe in average guys,” said Watt. “What happens is, the system makes them all fuckheads.” “And I want to try to snap them out of that,” said Boon. “That’s why I write these songs, OK?”
― Michael Azerrad, quote from Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991



About the author

Michael Azerrad
Born place: The United States
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Taking power back around your money is about getting the balance right. Taking too much or too little responsibility holds you back from having a beautiful, healthy and abundant relationship with your true wealthy self. You don’t need to get evicted, lose all your friends or break up your marriage to learn the lesson. Take a look at where money is a pain in the butt for you and ask yourself: Where has this shown up in the past? What’s the pattern? What’s the Universe trying to tell you? What are you afraid of? What are you no longer willing to put up with?”
― Denise Duffield-Thomas, quote from Get Rich Lucky Bitch Release Your Money Blocks and Live a First Class Life


“You will never find me in trouble. You will find me in the library. If you can remember where that is.”
― Sarah Rees Brennan, quote from In Other Lands


“It’s not a boys“ club,” I said. Not anymore. “It’s one of the most powerful secret societies in the world.” I should know. I’m a member.”
― Diana Peterfreund, quote from Secret Society Girl


“Jules!” Arsinoe hisses. “Jules, are you down here?”

“Arsinoe!” Jules and Camden scramble up to the bars as Arsinoe runs to them. They embrace her as well as they can with hands and paws. Camden purrs and licks her face.

“Camden, blegh.” Arsinoe grins and wipes her cheek.

“I might have licked you as well, I’m so happy to see you.” Jules gasps.”
― Kendare Blake, quote from One Dark Throne


“The first few days, the worst thing he seen Harold do was take a dump and use the pages from one of the camp library books for toilet paper.
Renée wined. “It turned out to be The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. Our only copy. If I had known what he was going to do with it, I would’ve given him a copy of Atlas Shrugged.”
― Joe Hill, quote from The Fireman


Interesting books

Castle in the Air
(29K)
Castle in the Air
by Diana Wynne Jones
Meant to Be
(15.1K)
Meant to Be
by Lauren Morrill
It Happened One Wedding
(12.6K)
It Happened One Wedd...
by Julie James
The Unwanted Wife
(21.6K)
The Unwanted Wife
by Natasha Anders
Storm
(23.6K)
Storm
by Brigid Kemmerer
Ruthless People
(15.3K)
Ruthless People
by J.J. McAvoy

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.