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
“يمكن للكولونيل أن يكون شيطانا؛ ولكنه مفيد للزعيم: فكل ما هو سيئ ينسب إليه، بينما ينسب الجيد إلى تروخييو .
هل هناك خدمة وفائدة أكبرمن هده؟ فلكي تستمر حكومة مدة ثلاثين سنة. لا بد من وجود جوني اأبيس يدس يده في البراز. بل ويدس جسمه ورأسه اذا اقتضى الأمر. إنه يحرق نفسه. إنه يستقطب كراهية الأعداء. وأحيانا الأصدقاء. الزعيم يعرف ذلك. ولهذا يستبقيه إلى جانبه ٠ ولولا أن الكولونيل يحمي ظهر الزعيم. لما كان بالإمكان ضمان ألا يحدث له ما جرى لبيريث خيمينث في فنزويلا. وباتيستا في كوبا. وبيرون في الأرجنتين”
― Mario Vargas Llosa, quote from The Feast of the Goat
“You should take more pride in your appearance,” I tell him. “You'll never attract girls with an ugly mug like that.”
― Darren Shan, quote from Lord Loss
“The truth is, wherever you choose to be, it's the wrong place.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, quote from Diary
“Do you still believe that if you truly want something enough it can happen?" I ask. I think of all the times I wanted to stop the world from spinning, all the times I wanted to go back and start over again. All the things I've wanted to undo or take back. Did I not want them enough?”
― Carrie Ryan, quote from The Dead-Tossed Waves
“Pourquoi souffrons-nous ainsi ? demande le vieux poète Norbert de Varenne à Georges Duroy. C’est que nous étions nés sans doute pour vivre d’avantage selon la matière et moins selon l’esprit ; mais, à force de penser, une disproportion s’est faite entre l’état de notre intelligence agrandie et les conditions immuables de notre vie.”
― Guy de Maupassant, quote from Bel-Ami
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