Quotes from Richard Hell

In fact I thought life was pretty much a losing proposition, and I didn't mind saying so.

It's great to be anywhere as a writer. It saves you from implication in the ugliness of the place and justifies your being there. You can spend all day jerking off as long as you describe it well.

I remember the revelation it was to me when I realized I'd rather be smart in the way Elvis Presley was than in the way, say, Ludwig Wittgenstein was. The thing was, you could imagine you could be smart like Wittgenstein by just thinking hard enough, but Elvis just had it. It was almost spiritual. A kind of grace.

You realize there are certain things that you'll never do that you always thought would be part of your future. It's a big relief to discover what you are best suited for, and it's a real advantage to be able then to focus.

it was a crime to take anything too seriously, as oppressed as we felt by the adult and conventional world. All the most serious art is not only sad but hilarious. What other intelligent way to live is there but to laugh about it? The alternative, also respectable, is suicide. But how could you do that? Not only would it betray a woeful lack of humor, but it would keep you from finding out what was going to happen next.

Only time can write a song that's really really real The most a man can do is say the way its playing feels And know he only knows as much as time to him reveals

I was sayin' let me out of here before I was even born.

Basically, I have one feeling... the desire to get out of here. And any other feelings I have come from trying to analyze, you know, why I want to go away... See, I always feel uncomfortable and I just want to... walk out of the room. It's not going to any other place or any other sensation, or anything like that, it's just to get out of 'here'.

I'm forever amazed at how much fun it is to leave. Just to leave. Arriving has its points, but leaving is inexhaustible.

Heroin possesses no negative qualities. You Asshole.

Oh Alabama! You make us so happy. What a playground. Without a word you remove the lake from around your neck and place it on mine. Emeralds. Diamonds. Rubies. Alabama, thank you, ma'am.

The purpose of rock n' roll is to convince girls to pay money to get close to you.

we still have the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building and the Woolworth Building, but it just seems like part of the nature of New York, that it's always shifting.

Poetry's always dead, you know? You don't realize how good poetry is until 15 years later.

I belong to the blank generationI can take it or leave it each time

Poetry's always dead, you know? You don't realize how good poetry is until 15 years later.

It's really interesting with art-movies too, but art especially - to see how your attitude toward artists and works and your level of appreciation of them is always shifting and changing over the years.

In fact I thought life was pretty much a losing proposition, and I didn't mind saying so.

A memoir takes some particular threads, some incidents, some experience from a person's life and gives an account of it.

A memoir is a book about some particular thread or theme or moment in a person's life, whereas an autobiography is the entire life.

I never thought I would write an autobiography, probably because my first novel, Go Now, is really all drawn from my life, even though it's more about the psychology going on.

An autobiography is a life story. It starts when you're born and continues until the end.

Well, I thought the Sex Pistols were the cream of the crop. They came in and topped everybody, for sure. They took all the existing strands and made a perfect package out of them.

It's really interesting with art-movies too, but art especially - to see how your attitude toward artists and works and your level of appreciation of them is always shifting and changing over the years.