- Johnny Cash I can't be arsed with, but I hate The Doors even more. They'll always get me out of the room. I could never, ever be friends with anyone who thought The Doors were any good. You can always spot a fan. They have crap haircuts and leather jackets and they hate their mothers. The Doors were even worse than The Damned, who were the musical version of the worst bits of Tiswas (1974).
- [on Nirvana] They destroyed a generation of people - they gave them a gateway to an alternative world without getting a badge first and took them to that world which, at the end of the day, was just bad metal.
- [on 'Never Mind the Bollocks' by Sex Pistols] It's immovable, a towering achievement. John Lydon's the most original rock singer of all time: unique, intelligent, so working class.
- [on what people get wrong about him] That I'm going to be six foot two. They go, 'God, you look like the Terminator on TV - you're so short'. I'm five five and a bit, I think. I'm fucking tiny.
- [2016; reply to Nicky Wire's question "How come your (hotel) room is nicer than mine?"] This is where they put you if you're a smoker.
- [1996] At least a third of my body must have been made of alcohol during the run-up to the release of 'A Design For Life'. I just didn't feel confident. You'd go home to see your mum and dad and she'd go, 'James, I never thought you'd have a weight problem! Look at your dad'. And my dad's there, 55 years old, smokes 40 a day, drinks and he's completely fit and hard. My auntie comes in and goes, 'Oooh, you fat little blob'.
- [1994] Individually we've always been pretty powerless, but together we make up for each others' inefficiencies. Nick's [Nicky Wire] handsome and has always been the most popular with the girls; Richey [Edwards] never had any musical talent but he's so articulate and sensitive to everything around him. Sean is brutality personified, pisses everybody off because he doesn't like anybody or anything, and then there's me who's a bit musical and a bit of a lad.
- Everyone's got a corner of their heart you can't quite understand.
- [on Manic Street Preachers' song "The Love of Richard Nixon"] I just don't understand why we fucking did it! You know... why would we try to humanise Richard Nixon? That's just... (laughs)
- For rock'n'roll lyrics to work, they have to have that sense of rhythm, naturally, to fit into a song. You can't just force words into a song... Unless you're Bob Dylan.
- [about Nicky Wire and Richey Edwards's outrageous statements to the press] Me and Sean would find out these things in interviews. "We're only doing one album? We're going to self-immolate on Top of the Pops? I missed that meeting."
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