Quotes About Nonconformity

I've always had trouble with authority.

I loved being a troublemaker. At Santa Monica High, I would smoke on campus, go barefoot, anything.

But if you work in the rock industry, you should realize that the most important bands are the troublemakers.

I dressed more like a pop star, I suppose, rather than the traditional blazer and tall trousers other players went for.

I could have my hair really short. I didn't have to wear dresses, I could wear baggy old T-shirts and ripped trousers and monkey boots and I was desirable to boys that were into the same stuff.

I dislike all those cookie-cutter Nashville songs. You know the ones: about tight jeans and pick-up trucks.

I never fit in. I am a true alternative. And I love being the outcast. That's my role in life, to be an outcast.

As a creative, you have to be your truest form. You can't worry about fitting into whatever boxes people want to put you in.

Those who are truly contemporary are those who neither perfectly coincide with their time nor adapt to its demands... Contemporariness, then, is that relationship with time that adheres to it through a disconnection.

I don't want to be like Donald Trump or anything like it... I'm different than some people.

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.

No one's ever really given me any style advice. I wear what I want, and it doesn't matter what other people think.

Survivor is like rock 'n' roll - you can do what you want.

The source of my difficulties has always been the same: an inability to accept what to others seems natural, and an irresistible tendency to voice opinions no one wants to hear . . .

I'm sure people would argue this, but I want to be different in everything I do. I don't think I've been the same in anything I've done, and I want to keep that up.

When you say that I have followers, let me assure you that I do not want followers, nor would I ever encourage the idea of following.

I'm not interested in trying to have people who might like other kinds of music follow me. I don't want to please them.

People will want you to behave a certain way, to make a certain choice because it reinforces the way they see the world...But you have to do what's right for you.

I never wanted to play guitar when I was younger. I wanted to be a drummer because everybody plays guitar, and I didn't want to do what everybody else wanted to do.

Even though I like looking good - don't get me wrong - but if I don't want to, I don't have to.

It's definitely an intrinsic part of my makeup that makes me want to see black when everyone else is seeing white.

If it's freedom you want, come to Texas. No one there tells you what to do and how you have to do it.

The fans like the idea we do what we want. It's not an act. Screw the record company and the beaten path. Without MTV or radio, we still have a huge underground following.

I decided that I did not want to follow any of these ideologies or trends, because these also exerted a kind of pressure, and obstructed absolute creative freedom.