On AIDS:
'We are aware for the first time
in our history that the sexual act can bring about death.But we must not
let AIDS become a banner that can be waved by right-wing elements to herald
some new morality.AIDS is being used as a reason why nobody must experiment.But
we have to be aware that everybody must feel comfortable in their
sexuality.'
interview in Arena(London),May/June
1993
On art:
'Art can be a political reference,a
sexual force,any force that you want,but it should be usable.What the hell
do artists want?Museum pieces?'
interview in Playboy(Chicago),September
1976
On artists:
The emphasis placed on what people
are saying,and whether they're profound or not,annoys me a little,'cause
I don't want to be profound.The aim of an artist is just to investigate.That's
all I want to do:investigate and present the results.'
interview,1972
On bisexuality:
'It's true-I am a bisexual.But
I can't deny that I've used that fact very well.I suppose it's the best
thing that ever happened to me.Fun,too.'
interview,Feb.1976
On death:
'Yes,I had a kind of a... a kind
of a strange,psychosomatic death-wish thing,I think... But that's because
I was so lost in Ziggy,I think... again it was all that schizophrenia...
in 'Cracked Actor'-a BBC documentary,broadcast
on 26 Jan.1975
On errors:
'Peope like watching people who
make mistakes,but they prefer watching a man who survives his mistakes.The
so-called rebel figures are not popular because they are rebels,but because
they've made mistakes and got over them.'
interview,March 1976
On extremism:
'I'm not one for delicate social
niceties.If I take a jump into the pool,I generally swallow all the water.'
interview,Oct.1977
On fascism:
'Yes,I believe very strongly in
fascism.The only way we can speed up the sort of liberalism that's hanging
foul in the air at the moment is to speed up the progress of a right-wing,totally
dictatorial tyrany and get it over as fast as possible.People have always
responded with greater efficiency under a regimental leadership.A liberal
wastes time sayin,'Well,now,what ideas have you got?'Show them what to
do,for God's sake.If you don't,nothing will get done.I can't stand people
just hanging about.'
interview,Feb.1976
note:he had earlier voiced
similar opinions in an interview in August 1975,though he later repudiated
his remarks,which he called 'glib,theatrical observations' and called himself
'apolitical'.
On hippies:
I was always a sort of throwback
to the Beat period in my early thinking.And when the hippies came along
with all their funny tiedyes and things,it all seemed naive and wrong.It
didn't have a backbone. ...I wanted to hit everybody that came along wearing
love beads.'
interview,Feb.1976
On Adolf Hitler:
'Adolf Hitler was one of the first
rock stars.Look at some of his films and see how he moved.I think he was
quite as good as Jagger.It's astounding.And,boy,when he hit that stage,he
worked an audience.Good God!He was no politician,he was a media artist
himself.He used politics and theatrics and created this thing that governed
and controlled the show for those twelve years.The world will never see
his like.He staged a country.'
interview,Feb.1976
On liberals:
There's some form of ghost-force
liberalism permeating the air in America,but it's got to go,because it's
got no foundation at all,apart from a set of laws that were established
way back in the bloody Fifties and early Sixties and have no bearing at
all in the Seventies.'
interview,Aug.1975
On the media:
'I think that we have created a
new kind of person in a way.We have created a child who will be so exposed
to the media that he will be lost to his parents by the time he's twelve.'
quoted in Melody Maker(London),22
Jan.1972
On performing:
'I'm going out to bloody entertain,not
just get up on a stage and knock off a few songs.I couldn't do that.I'm
the last person to pretend that I'm a radio.I'd rather go out and be a
colour television set.'
in 1972,quoted bt David Buckley
in 'Strange Fascination'
On rock'n'roll:
'Rock'n'roll has been really bringing
me down lately.It's in great danger of becoming an immobile,sterile fascist
that constantly spews its propaganda on every arm of the media.It rules
and dictates a level of thought and clarity of intelligence that you'll
never rise above... It lets in lower elements and shadows that I don't
think are necessary.Rock has always been the devil's music.You can't convince
me that it isn't.'
interview,Feb.1976
On self-expression:
'I am into my own expression;expression
of what goes through my head or expression of whatever inspires me to be
a creative person in the first place.It just so happens that I was brought
up on a diet of rock'n'roll,and at the time,it seemed to be my canvas.It
really is as basic as that,it's just an artist's materials.'
interview,June 1973
On the Sixties:
I was somewhat blamed for putting
the Sixties to their funeral.This is not true.As far as I was concerned,the
Sixties were already dead,I merely helped clear the bodies.'
in a concert
On songwriting:
All I try to in my writing is assemble
points that interest me and puzzle through it,and that becomes a song and
other people who listen to that song must take what they can from it and
see if information that they've assembled fits in with anything I've assembled
and what do we do now?'
On his stage characters:
'I got lost at one point.I couldn't
decide whether I was writing characters,or whether the characters were
writing me,or whether we were all one and the same.'
in 'Cracked Actor'-a BBC documentary,broadcast
on 26 Jan.1975
On the success:
'Do you know that feeling you get
in a car when somebody's accelerating very,very fast and you're not driving?And
you get that 'ugh' feeling in your chest when you've been forced backwards
and you think 'ugh' and you're not sure whether you like it or not.It's
that kind of feeling,that's what success was like,the first thrust of being
totally unknown to what seemed to be very quickly known.It ws very frightening
for me.And coping with it was something that I tried to do.And that's what
happened,that was me coping.Some of those albums were me coping.Taking
it all very seriously I was...'
in 'Cracked Actor'-a BBC documentary,broadcast
on 26 Jan.1975
On television:
'It's like a kaleidoscope.No matter
how many little colours you put in it,that kaleidoscope will make those
colours have a pattern... and that's what happenes with TV-it doesn't matter
who puts what in the TV,by the end of the year there's a whole format that
the TV put together.The TV puts over its own plan.'
interview,Aug.1975
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