Lydia Lunch

“I'm completely optimistic - I know the end is coming!”

“Two of my favourite books are Henry Miller's 'Tropic of Cancer' and 'Tropic of Capricorn.'”

“I believe happiness is a chemical imbalance - it's a silly thing to strife for. But satisfaction - if you seek satisfaction, you can succeed. Satisfaction is knowing that you're doing the best that you can do; you're living your life to the fullest.”

“The imperial, genocidal war machine never rests, so I don't either.”

“The evidence of death is before my eyes constantly. Moving from me outward. My death always a step in advance. The world is a mirror of myself dying. The world not dying anymore than I die. I more alive a hundred years from now. Than at this very moment.”

“Politics are always involved, even in my love songs.”

“The biggest insult is that I've been called an exaggerator... I tell the truth as I know it. I don't glamorize the nightmare and horror that I witness; I just digest it and spew it back, with venom.”

“I am a humanist not a feminist. There's a big difference.”

“Think your own thoughts.”

“I think my speeches are hilarious. I think I'm a natural comedian, but I like denying people the chance to laugh. I want to deny you the relief of the punchline.”

“I used to think feminism was a liberating force - now I see many of those people are just censors under a different name.”

“The female format is a beautiful one in which to function. Foolhardy as it may be. I change my image all the time, it's whatever suits me at the moment.”

“Honesty works against you in the entertainment field. I try to be a journalist and a documentarian, but that doesn't mean that people are going to embrace it at the moment. The point is I'm leaving the mark of my hysteria and the political hysteria, and that's it... I can only do what I do.”

“'Musician' is not a very respected title. I'm not a musician.”

“I just prefer instrumental. I don't need to hear what other people are singing. And if I need music as a backdrop to work or to think, I need to have that part of the brain clear - I don't need people feeding their fantasies into my vision.”

“I've always been inspired by Genet, Henry Miller and Hubert Selby, Jr., who taught me that you've got to tell a bigger truth in whatever you're doing, but the truth is not popular.”

“Aggressive female icons have been chronically demeaned... It's fine for male artists to be angry - they're encouraged to outwardly express their aggression - but women? I've been painted as an aggressive Feminazi because I'm blunt, stubborn, independent, forthright.”

“Sure you're powerless, sure you're just one person, sure you can't change anything... but you don't have to be miserable about it as well.”

“I'm a very sympathetic person, but that doesn't always come across in my work because I'm too busy being mad at everything.”

“People have always asked me, 'Haven't you wanted to sell out?', and it's like, who am I going to sell to?”