183 Quotes by Robert Smith

"The very first concert I ever went to on my own was actually Rory Gallagher. In a one-month period in 1973 or '74, I saw him, Thin Lizzy and the Rolling Stones. I wasn't really a big Rory Gallagher fan, but I thought his guitar playing was fabulous. But Thin Lizzy, they were fabulous."

"Whatever I was doing, even when I was at school, I never repressed anything that I felt. I wasn't flamboyant; I was actually quite reticent most of the time. But if I felt I had to do something, I did it."

"When punk came along, I found my generation's music. I grew up listening to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd, 'cause that was what got played in the house. But when I first saw the Stranglers, I thought, 'This is it.'"

"If I put a value on my music, and no one's prepared to pay that, then more fool me, but the idea that the value is created by the consumer is an idiot plan; it can't work."

"The idea of reinvention has always seemed bizarre to me."

"My whole life I've played music for my own personal enjoyment and the idea of it becoming a machine or a business is just horrible."

"You don't really know a song until you play it live."

"Each time I play a song it seems more real."

"I married somebody who likes the way I look. If I changed my hair every year, and I reinvented myself in time-honoured pop fashion, I think understandably the person I'm married to would grow slightly sick of me."

"I'm happy quite a lot of the time. I've done far more than I ever thought I would have, so I'd be very hard-pressed to walk around miserable."