“Never mind the Sex Pistols, here come something for the ass. Namely, the Bad Brains. Baddest hardcore band in the land, living or dead”

“CBGB could become the Cavern of a new generation. The Ramones could become its Animals. And 'Punk' could become its 'Esquire.'”

“Can I possibly believe that this deliberately barbaric sometime poet and her glorified garage band are worthy of comparison with Rimbaud, Jarry, Tzara, Gide, Mondrian? The short version of my answer is yes”

"Legs, you asshole," I said. "I am not doing this story on you. I am not taking the responsibility for making you famous."

“Here at last was art with access to a contemporary, white, English-speaking proletarian culture. It pos­ited kids whose very determination to survive took guts and whose unwillingness to give up the idea of victory was positively heroic”

“Hell really was the quintessential avant-punk. With no more irony than was mete, he presented his nihilistic narcissism not as youthful hijinx but as a full-fledged philos­ophy/aesthetic”

“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.”

“The Clash may be the greatest rock and roll band in the world… but they haven’t conquered Britain yet.”

“You don’t have to try at all to be a racist. It’s a little coiled clot of venom lurking there in all of us, white and black, goy and Jew, ready to strike out when we feel embattled, belittled, brutalized.”