“As far as I'm concerned, there are only two valid reasons to venture downtown. One of them is the second-hand bookstores, undeniably the best in the city. The other is the obligatory trek down to The Village Voice to hand in one's copy under the duress of a deadline”
“Debbie Blondie herself has the Shangri-Las/Crystals girl group sound down to a perfect snotty whine, but unlike Patti Smith, she never comes across as snotty or pretentious.”
"Maybe if we all get drunk enough we'll all have blackouts so trackless and remarkably sustained that we'll never remember all the reprehensible things we said and did to each other, hence no guilt"
"Lester ennobled the ludicrous inner life of pop fans by telling the truth about it — by discerning that inner lives, and not music, were what pop music was about"
