Quotes from Peter Hook

I'm one of those old cynics that thinks, whoever you vote for, the government always gets in.

Madonna's like a black widow spider. She tends to use people, then they shrivel up and disappear.

And they do tend to be fast and up, because that's how I like to drive.

Democracy for us tends to be has to do with who shouts the loudest!

Dance music tends to be a solitary affair.

I've been very grateful and humbled by the fact that young people really dig Joy Division's music. It's a great testament to the chemistry and the songwriting prowess between the four original members.

What was punk all about? To me, it was if you really want to do something, go ahead and do it.

We don't to be some kind of rock supergroup for the sake of being a supergroup. You want to change things and say something fresh and new so you appeal to people as a new group.

I'd rather have ten people who are mad for it than ten thousand who aren't.

The fact is that you don't want to be away forever, but you want to lead a normal life.

There are lots of Joy Division songs that are so powerful when played live, some of which we did either never play or played very rarely.

What I've learned is that life is a balance between idealism and realism.

One of the great things about education is that it should stop you making mistakes - and I have made a lot of mistakes.

There are so little outtakes from the Joy Division era. We didn't have much money. You couldn't be very generous in recording, so we were very thrifty in how we recorded. Everything was very, very well looked after financially because we just couldn't afford it.

People go and hide, but I don't. I'm a fighter.

I regularly go to concerts with my children sharing the music.

For the first 18 months of Joy Division, we used our jobs to fund the band. We'd all chip in three, five quid to go and do a gig. But it was worth it. It was amazing we could afford to feed ourselves. But we were so creatively and artistically satisfied. You can't explain that to somebody who's never been there.

A poetic, sensitive, tortured soul, the Ian Curtis of the myth - he was definitely that.

There's a very fine line between being artistic and being a dickhead - it's like love and hate.

Music was such an important part of everyone's life in the '60s and '70s, but everywhere you played, the music was dreadful.

When you balance it against New Order, New Order don't work or tour relentlessly. We definitely work in our own way and sometimes it's a bit too slow for me, so I like to plan ahead and fill my time up.

I don't find imitating other people's music easy at all. I remember being fifth in line for a Rolling Stones tour, early '90s, when Bill Wyman left, and I was hoping against hope that I wouldn't get the call to audition. I wouldn't be able to play a Stones song if you put a gun to my head.

My big frustration in New Order was that they played the same tracks all the time.

That's it really, at the moment I wouldn't say I was influenced by any one thing in particular.