93 Quotes by Greil Marcus

Buddy Holly had something very different from the other great early rock n' roll stars, whether it was Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Bo Diddley. He came across as so ordinary, as such a nerd. You know, he was a big guy, and he carried a gun. He was anything but a nerd.

I've always known why I do what I do. I didn't need to be psychoanalysed to find that out.

My father was executive officer, which is second-in-command, on a ship called the Hull, one of three ordered into a typhoon by Admiral Halsey - an insane and sadistic decision.

Sometimes you can listen to a song all your life without hearing it.

When I'm struck by things, I want to hear more and find out more. I remember when Lana Del Rey was on 'SNL,' this supposedly disastrous performance. She's doing this pretentious torch song, and I thought, 'I don't know what she's doing, but it's really moving me.'

My ideal reader is somebody who trips over a copy of my book on the sidewalk; then they pick it up and read as they walk. Somebody who comes in knowing nothing, caring nothing, but responds to the story.

When you celebrate somebody's bad work on the terms that define their good work, how can that artist have anything but contempt for an audience that can't tell the good from the bad?

After Chuck Berry died, it seemed web sites popped up like mushrooms to show where he'd taken the guitar introduction to 'Johnny B. Goode' from to prove that his music was nothing new, that it was only ignorance, or vanity, that led his listeners to think that not only was the music different - they might be, too.

Perhaps the most pernicious strain of contemporary criticism says one thing before it says anything else, says it to whatever historical event or cultural happenstance is supposedly at issue: 'You can't fool me.'