Top 15 Iggy Pop Quotes

You write about things of importance to you. And it's gotta be for real. Do I think about my dick? Oh, yeah, all the time. If I think about it all the time, I got a right to sing about it. If I wasn't thinking about it all the time but thought, "It's time to write a rock song, I'd better mention my dick," then I wouldn't even be able to say "dick" right. Besides, it's an ecological line. It's not, "My dick is all bad, motherfucker, wickety wackety woo." It's nature-oriented. [Pauses, looking serious, then laughs] It is!

Have you ever noticed that a small creature, like a mouse or a mole, when faced with danger, they just stop? I've had big, long periods in my life when I was a lot like that. I just froze. It was not fun, but it was what I thought I had to do. And that's how I lived, pretty much, at one time. I have a hot memory, but I know I've forgotten many things, too, just squashed things in favor of survival. The only thing missing from my life right now is what I've got, and it's peace. I have more than I ever had ... and not as much as I would like.

If I don't terrorize, I'm not Pop.

I almost always pee in the yard or the garden, because I like to pee on my estate.

I'm really not good with the pickups. I'm a klutz and don't have a line of gab. I'm only good if they know who I am. So I'll just sit and wait for somebody to say, "Aren't you ... ?" and then go from there.

I've never had any sort of macho revulsion of fags, but Bowie and I — never, never, never, never. Everybody would think that, but I never saw him be that way anyway. I'll tell you this. That guy got more p-u-s-s-y. I couldn't believe it. Talk about a bitch magnet. Damn! Actresses, heiresses, waitresses, skateresses. And me? I was just left holding my dick most of the time. I had this short haircut, and I looked like a duck. But I got lucky sometimes. I got a good song out of a girl I was knocking off at the time, and it became "China Girl."

I used to catch myself — maybe we'd be having dinner with the future king of Spain, and I'd be grumpy, like, "What are we doing here, hanging out with these swells?" And then, right away, I'd realize, "Dude, you're jealous." It got very hard on a certain level. He was a person of affairs, in the worldly sense, with a lot of choices laid out on his smorgasbord. I had no choices whatsoever. I was a pariah. But a very fortunate one, in that he saw something worthwhile in me, and he made me two terrific records. He gave me the break I needed to continue living life. He is my benefactor.

Nobody understands me, I'm really sensitive. Everyone thinks I should be so happy, fucking all these chicks, and all the drugs and being a star. But I hurt. And I'm lonely.

This is the key thing that has always been misunderstood about me. All this fucking crap they said I did ... I only did it because I believed I was playing the actual music that was appropriate and good to reflect that time and place. ... Frankly, I've always felt I was completely innocent.

Bowie's a real man, and I'm a real woman — just like Catherine Deneuve.

You say I look goofy? OK, great. You say it's comedy? Great. Whatever anyone thought, I didn't care. Could be goony, could be sexy, could be stupid, could be cool. I didn't know, but as long as it was something, you know?

As society has changed, what had formerly been unacceptable has become colorful, even the broken-glass thing. Although, you know, there's an archetypal element to that anyway. ... It's about the blood ... The Christians used that riff with Christ. What did Christ really do? He hung out with hard-drinking fishermen. And when they asked him, "Why are you hanging out with prostitutes and fishermen?" he said, "Because they need me." What a line, you know? But what your martial society really wants is blood. We need some blood. We need some suffering. Like, the individual must suffer for the good of the whole. I toy around with that. Early on, I wasn't looking at Jesus Christ, saying to myself, "What an angle." I wasn't trying to be Christ-y. But, after all, on one level, this is showbiz.

Yeah, she's heard the war stories ... I tell it all to her. I think one has to, because one wants to know somebody, and one wants to feel that somebody knows one. I mean, the embarrassment quotient has been going down for a long time, and the fond amusement has been rising.

This town is diverse as shit. I like it here a lot.

I wore that because it makes me look beautiful. I stare at myself in the mirror and I think, "Wow, I'm really great-looking." ... I think I'm the greatest, anyway.