Marky Ramone

“When the whole CBGB scene began, it was in reaction to where rock 'n' roll was going.”

“Life definitely throws curve balls at you.”

“You gotta understand, the Ramones were greasers. We were Fonzie with longer hair. The greasers and gangs in Brooklyn all wore Chuck Taylors and leather jackets. Either you copied basketball players or you copied greasers.”

“We were always into '60s songs, it's no new thing to us.”

“I'm not here to tell anybody what to do. You live and learn.”

“I did five albums before I joined the Ramones.”

“To be honest, I don't think I ever watched a movie or read a book that made me cry.”

“Mental' was faster than most Ramones songs - and faster than most songs, period. It felt like what it was about: sitting in a hospital bed and losing your mind.”

“My grandfather was a chef at the Copacabana, and he ended up being a chef at the 21 Club - a master chef in both places. 21 was mainly like bankers, really, really, really upscale. Copacabana was basically entertainment: Bobby Darin, Sam Cooke, The Four Seasons, Frank Sinatra.”

“Sure, there was Iggy and the Stooges, the MC5, but those bands played slow songs, they had lead guitar and the songs were longer. When the Ramones came out, it was like a surge of energy, like a wall, a tidal wave comin' at you.”

“I hated 'Subterranean Jungle.'”

“Basically we would go to places and we would see bands trying to sound like us opening up for us, 1-2-3-4 with the leather jackets and the jeans and the Converse sneakers, which you see everywhere now. We were very grateful and happy that we were at least laying some sort of groundwork for bands that just wanted to play music.”

“Uh, I try to play the drums each day.”

“The younger audience is great, they throw off an energy, they sing along to the songs and they integrate with the older fans, which is great, to see how everyone gets along.”

“I was always into science fiction and I always liked sci-fi. Aliens! Spaceships! And all that stuff.”

“A lot of bands think, 'We'll be original.' The Ramones did it because they couldn't do anything else.”

“When you hear a band and you know it's them, then you've achieved something. For instance, The Beatles. You know it's them.”

“I have my idiosyncrasies like everyone else. If you're gonna talk about other people, you're going to have to talk about yourself. You're going to have to be honest about yourself.”

“Some people were raised differently than others, but when you start making fun of people's religion, it can become dangerous. That's how stuff got started in a lot of cases in history.”

“I think more people wanted to sound like the Ramones than The Velvet Underground. So many bands try to imitate us. Anywhere I go in the world, I hear it.”