Quotes from Lydia Lunch

The imperial, genocidal war machine never rests, so I don't either.

I believe happiness is a chemical imbalance––it's a silly thing to strive for. But, satisfaction––if you seek satisfaction you can succeed.

Honesty works against you in the entertainment field. I try to be a journalist and a documentarian, but that doesn't mean that people are going to embrace it at the moment. The point is I'm leaving the mark of my hysteria and the political hysteria, and that's it... I can only do what I do.

I've always been inspired by Genet, Henry Miller and Hubert Selby, Jr., who taught me that you've got to tell a bigger truth in whatever you're doing, but the truth is not popular.

I think my speeches are hilarious. I think I'm a natural comedian, but I like denying people the chance to laugh. I want to deny you the relief of the punchline.

Two of my favourite books are Henry Miller's 'Tropic of Cancer' and 'Tropic of Capricorn.'

The American way of life, as I see it, is really the American way of death. Everything is determined by greed and the insatiable desire to be the richest and most powerful. And that desire is limitless.

Part of the charm of what I do is the fact that it's completely unrelated to everything that came before.

Living in Barcelona, I have my own little ghetto utopia. There are 3,000 ghost towns in Spain, and I've used the images of them a lot in my backdrops for my solo spoken-word stuff. The ghost towns could be from two buildings to 40 - things died out, or there were plagues, the roads don't lead there, whatever.

I'm completely optimistic - I know the end is coming!

Aggressive female icons have been chronically demeaned... It's fine for male artists to be angry - they're encouraged to outwardly express their aggression - but women? I've been painted as an aggressive Feminazi because I'm blunt, stubborn, independent, forthright.

I believe happiness is a chemical imbalance - it's a silly thing to strife for. But satisfaction - if you seek satisfaction, you can succeed. Satisfaction is knowing that you're doing the best that you can do; you're living your life to the fullest.

I'm a very sympathetic person, but that doesn't always come across in my work because I'm too busy being mad at everything.

You want positive, go elsewhere. Go find a different lie.

I'm nihilistic, antagonistic, violent, horrible - but not obliterated, yet. I just refuse to be beaten down. I think it's stubborness that keeps me going.

I just prefer instrumental. I don't need to hear what other people are singing. And if I need music as a backdrop to work or to think, I need to have that part of the brain clear - I don't need people feeding their fantasies into my vision.

Because we have so much eye candy and mind candy, spending so much time trying to pay the rent, all of this conspires to keep us from thinking too hard or taking action from that. Our time is stolen. So much of our daily life is stolen.

I decided to lock myself in. A forced segregation. Sabbatical. A retreat into myself. My selves. Play hide and go seek in the looking-glass. The mirror angled at the foot of my bed. Twisted reflections bouncing off into infinity. Obsessed with my image, the myriad of distored figurines who danced in front of me in rapid succession, every feature exaggerated, every slight imperfection a new delicacy.

And is death not the ultimate orgasm, a return to that otherworldly ether, whose very origins were indeed a Big Bang, the ultimate explosion, the supreme chaos, whose resonance is the vibration we constantly seek to reproduce in everything we do.

They feared Me because I feared Nothing.

I must find Ecstasy in this Insanity Freedom from their Slavery The Truth in their Lies Life in their Death Beauty in their Homicidal Genocide Peace in the War Whore's evil orgy of Death and Negation Love amongst the Ruins Pleasure in my own Pain.

The need to document my insanity is an affliction I have not yet cured myself of...

I knew that my trauma, no matter what it was, was not unique. I knew that pain was the universal driving force of so many people—I knew that only in the details was it specific, and I just found it urgent to cut right to the chase and get right to the point.

I believe happiness is a chemical imbalance––it's a silly thing to strive for. But, satisfaction––if you seek satisfaction you can succeed.