Peter Doherty Quotes

• Basically there's a gulf between truth and untruth, I don't want to be too mathematical about it, because I'm not very good at maths. But it's a divide between, I dunno, a film and a cartoon. I've just become this cartoon character. I try not to follow it, but when you see pictures of yourself that have been photo-shopped to show you doing something you didn't:. that's wrong. It's my worst nightmare - and being misquoted, too, especially as I'm so precious about words.
• I'm not going to be hardened by these people, to these things, I'm not going to let them destroy my feelings or my emotions.
• We have played at venues up and down the country on this tour, some of which had no security, and have encountered no problems or witnessed any aggression. I simply asked the bouncer last night to apologise for his behaviour, three times in fact, and he refused. I was very upset at his attitude and although I'm very sorry for letting everyone down last night, I refuse to play at venues where pumped up, 16 stone men feel the need to be aggressively rude and to bully teenage kids around.
• I made this big statement saying, 'I've left The Libertines.' A couple of people said, 'You can't do that! You're such a great band! What are you gonna do about Brixton?' And some people said, 'Well, I'd rather be here than Brixton.' There's no reason you can't do both. If I was 16 or 17 and Morrissey opened his front door to me and let me go and listen to him and chat to him it would be a joy. Why not? It's possible. I don't really have that much else going on in my life.
• 'We've had death threats', Pete says, 'saying, 'You're evil and your days are numbered.' What was it, 'Don't panic but be scared'. Someone shat on our doorstep once and nailed a sparrow to our basement door. I don't mind, me. I'll out-weird any stalker.
• I can't buy her diamonds, my dick's too small. I never know where I stand with her. It's either a black eye or a love bite.
• Nooooooah. No, that was a big joke in the family. When I was 16, 17, I started drifting away from everything else and picking up a guitar, and it was like, 'What are you doing? You can't sing and you can't play a guitar', right up to the day we got signed by Rough Trade. And then it was like, 'Go on play us a song', whereas before it was, 'Shut up, fucking racket.'
• You've got to understand... these days I just can't afford to get involved [with the press]. People - they turn on you... on me. They write horrible things, deliberately twisting my words.
• The more you read and the more you teach yourself, the less you rely on something like drugs to take you to a better place.
• I have a very bad relationship with the future. We don't get on. We just ignore each other.
• Broken glass. It's just like glitter, isn't it?
• 'Each man kills the things he loves'. I recognise that in myself, in relationships, even with guitars, beautiful things that I've had and wilfully destroyed.
• It's that mysterious thing called hype. I've looked under every rock, and I couldn't find out what it means. Certain people hear a certain melody, and they're attracted to it. I'm in love with that feeling. We're looking for fun and adventure and a bit of redemption and somewhere to live. Everything else is a blind venture into the unknown.
• I don't really know what 'intellectual' means, but if it means you've got a desire to learn, you've got a desire to look for things that haven't been presented to you, then, maybe. I think that 'intellectual' is quite an exclusive word. I think it's just for anyone that has a thirst or a hunger to improve themselves, or a yearning to escape from somewhere to get to a better place.
• The main instinct a lot of the time is to masquerade and hide the truth at all times. Whereas in reality what happens in songs is laying bare the truth. So a lot of time it's fighting that instinct, and the songs become almost confessional. They can also be quite condescending to myself, almost like I'm putting myself down.
• I do have utopian fantasies. A lot of them are more - I wouldn't say spiritual, but they relate more to the imagination and the individual. But for me socialism is a way of trying to put far-fetched ideas into everyday use, trying to find a way to bridge the gap between that fantasy and reality, and reaching out across that gap to the people who can actually do something to make the change.
• I know the basic facts cause they've been repeated again and again across various duty desk counters at police stations over the past months and years: I'm 6ft 2in, green-brown eyes. Distinguishing features: moles. Tattoos: loads. Got a wolf, a mermaid, a heart with a K in it. They don't go through your personality traits.
• Something good has happened to us. We are, dare I say it, a professional unit these days. When people get us in a room together now, they actually treat us like musicians. Before, they would treat us as anything but: pigeon fanciers, candles, dry humpers...
• There are three things that I know a bit about in my life and that's QPR, my guitar and drugs. I know QPR are the best football team in the world, my guitar is the most beautiful thing I own and that I don't take enough drugs to kill me. It isnt drugs that I need to get rid of; it's the demons that fill my head. Once I have come to terms with my demons, maybe I'll be able to get clean.
• Until I was nine years old I thought 'cunt' was a term of endearment
• Arcadia? The realm of the infinite? It's a poet's corner... It's not a cult or a religion - it's an awareness of your surroundings; you're not going to force yourself on anyone and, equally, no one's going to force themselves on you. And it's about community and pleasure. It came from a whisper through the trees. It came from a crack in the pavement. It can also come when you open a bag of crisps, or when you kick a football against a goalpost. Even if I was winding you up, it would still be true, because Arcadia and the Arcadian Dream is so deep, is so true to our hearts... It can be as powerful as your imagination can allow it to be. But, it can also be as dark and twisted as your soul... Arcadia encompasses the infinite, and that's why it comforts me.
• Just when you get really wound up, you turn a corner and you're somewhere else completely. You find an Arcadian glade - a glimpse of paradise in the middle of it all. And that's why you persevere. That's why you don't chuck yourself off a building or shoot yourself at the same time as someone else, like he [Carl] wanted us to.
• I still do. It's changed a lot. It started off as something ancient and forgotten; and became something modern and real. I just couldn't swim. The tunnels get narrower and narrower.
• Has there ever been a musician of cultural significance who's been aware they're significant? Maybe it's a generation whose parents came from a working class environment and because they were rootless in a way, like me and him, they latched onto that as an identity. Maybe we romanticise what our parents wanted to escape from. We're, like, fantasising out a living.
• There's a point you reach before you're perverted and tainted by all the things that drag you into the music business, like avarice or a lust for fame. The original reason why I started was some feeling of community, equality, wanting to fight for things you believe in. Any kid who's gone to a state school knows what it's all about - bullying, racism. And you've just got to make a stand.
• You can't get that feeling anywhere else. It's communion. It's like being washed away in the ocean, carried aloft on a wave.
• I think it's woken me up to a few things, and you do become complacent. As well as being anti something, you've got to be pro something. So you're anti racism, so what are you pro? You're pro community. I would put my hand on my heart and I'd attach myself to socialist ideas. Because I believe in society. And it's bollocks that black people have any less worth in society than white people, which is basically what people like the BNP say.
• They left me, by the side of the road, with a plastic bag and all kinds of bitterness Well, in my mind, and I can say this forever I suppose, and people might laugh at it, but I don't think I ever really left The Libertines, nor can I ever leave The Libertines, you know, having been a founder of the band with Carl, but that sounds silly, doesn't it, seeing as they played all the festivals without me and made it difficult, no - impossible, for me to play live with them.
• I've got a fierce passion for politics but I can't stand the smarmy, hypocritical upper-middle-class dictator nation that prevails and has always prevailed in this country. I'm up for petrol bombers, mate, and fighting in the streets.
• I think I only needed something to hold on to. It has never been about depravity. It's always been about melody. But melody and I met in many depraved situations. Meeting melody is the victory of the empty spiralling nightmare.
• It's not people in bands, is it? Why do people who take drugs, why are they in bands? 'Cos they're trying to prove themselves. To make themselves blank and numb and not able to communicate with other people.
• If I want drugs, I don't have to do a gig to get them. I do a gig when I feel shit, because I need to be playing. There's no drug in the world that can compare with playing music
• With drugs, I think the sort of person that would die from an overdose is gonna die soon enough anyway, because they've got that will to destroy what's left of their life.
• I'd say exercising self-control is very important for a dissolute life. You don't need to control your drug intake to lead a free life. Whether you take no drugs at all or everything you can get your hands on, a free life is separate from that.
• Sometimes I feel really guilty complaining about it because there are some amazing things happening around me but the darkness has prevailed, to be honest, in extremis. Yesterday, man, I went to buy a pint of milk and I got stopped in the street and searched. They found a crumb of rock in the lining of my coat that I didn't even know was there and I spent all day in fucking Charing Cross [police] station. They're taking the piss, mate.
• That's right, but I'm not sure it's my place to talk about drugs. I'd rather take them or not take them - but not talk about them.
• I was so, so lost and unhappy. If you listen to the songs on the first album, you can hear it. They're really sad songs and they come from a lonely place. The relationship broke up, and I went into free fall. I saw drugs as a way of avoiding:the darkness.
• I realise it's proved to people that I don't love them. It's dawning on me now that if I say I love someone: it's like lying, really. As long as I'm taking it, the lie continues. I've got a lot of proving myself to do.
• Drugs don't work. They don't even make you forget - only momentarily, because if something's that painful, nothing's going to make you forget it. You think they'll fill the hole, but the hole just gets deeper: It's like trying to fill in a hole without a spade.
• After years of entrenched drug abuse, you have a mourning period. I know it's a bit sad, but I'm in mourning. I'm in mourning for an armful.
• Yes, it was riveting. Despite everything, you knew there was goodness there. Something to believe in. Something which is good, pure and untainted by anything.
• Carl's all right. It's just like EastEnders really. He's still my kid.
• I got headbutted in Wolverhampton. You [Carl] get snogged in Northampton, head butted in Wolverhampton and I won't even tell you what happened in Southampton. Basically Carlos gets the love and I get all the head butts, it seems to be the way of things.
• I fall in love with Britain every day, with bridges, buses, blue skies... but it's a brutal world, man.
• I knew I was destined for London, so I came to live with my nan in her council flat. It was the summer after my A-levels. Got a job in Willesden cemetery. I was getting a man's wage, filling in bumholes. Stood around while they did the last rites. Cut the grass. A lot of the time I'd just sit on the gravestones and read and write. Scribbling away.
• I mean you look in the paper and you see the bodies of mutilated people, and that's sexy. Controversy isn't saying something like 'Oh I've fucked Noel Gallagher' or something. Which I have.
• No, because it's not like they're the only songs we have. They're like children; you shouldn't really have a favourite. Unless one of your kids develops into a pervert.
• Mental-stability, I would say. I'd like to achieve a fluidity, where everything stays consistent - always doing shows, always with the chance to release records, meeting new people. But i've got no chance. Im just a talentless batty boy.
• I'm vain because I'm veinless.
• I got bitten last night actually. Just some bloke bit me. I wasn't doing anything and he just bit me. I was in a public telephone box in the centre of London and some fella came up and started biting me cock. Nah, I didn't bite him back. I hit him with my penis, right in the mouth and I exploded me wallpaper paste all over him. Paid me two quid.
• I knew she wasn't English For she spoke it far too well The grammar was goodly and the verbs as they should be Her slang was bang on the bell But as the language barrier clanged and banged I could not here: hear nor see London, England and Bow Crumble into the sea.
• The Thames and the Mersey, the Tyne and the Wear and the Clyde They spew slums like gravy on the banks of the poisonous tide What became of the working class? Nike, Reebok, Adidas Scratchcards, pitbulls, ecstasy Hooray for the 21st Century
• If you've lost your faith in love and music The end won't be long But if it's gone for you I too may lose it And that would be wrong...
• The red-faced president took afternoon tea With her majesty The Queen And they watched old films flicker Across the old palace movie screen Crying, 'What a shame!' As she slipped in the rain Poor dancing girl Well, she won't dance again...
• There are few more distressing sights than that of an Englishman in a baseball cap Yeah, we'll die in the class we were born That's a class of our own, my love
• Don't let the tide of your sorrow Drown your nights and flood your days
• Her old man, he don't like blacks or queers Yet he's proud we beat the Nazis How queer...
• Music when the lights go out Love goes cold in shades of doubt The strange face in my mind is all too clear Music when the lights come on The girl I thought I knew has gone And with her my heart has disappeared
• When she wakes up in the morning She writes down all her dreams Reads like the Book of Revelations Or the Beano or the unabridged Ulysses Oh, I really wanna know So tell me, Where does all the money go? Where does all the money go? Straight, straight up her nose
• I was a troubled teen Who put an advert in a magazine To the annoyance of my imaginary lover She doubted my integrity And this is what she said to me: She said, 'Oh, you, you're green You don't know what love means Well, let me tell you
• If you get tired of just hanging around Pick up a guitar, spin a web of sound And then you could be strung out all day With lovers and clowns Now I find myself still hanging around
• New York City's very pretty in the night-time But oh, don't you miss Soho?
• She said, 'I'll show you a picture, A picture of tomorrow, There's nothing changing, it's all sorrow.' 'Oh, no, please don't show me I'm a swine, you don't wanna know me!'
• If you're looking for a cheap sort Glint with perspiration There's a five mile queue Outside the disused powerstation
• I defy you all To know twice as much as nothing at all It's still nothing at all.
• I can't believe you've listed everything I stole since we met But I stole no kisses Just some books And the odd cigarette
• In the morning theres a buzz of flies Between the pillows and the skies that break into your eyes Through the looking glass and inbetween your thighs It's really no small surprise How it goes straight down the rabbit hole There it goes
• Well, I'll tell you a story but you won't listen It's about a nightmare steeped in tradition It's the story of a coked-up pansy Who spends his nights in flights of fancy Met two fellas over gin and mixers They talked for a while, he soon got the picture Pete Docherty is a souped up Soho mincer And the other was a pikey with a knowledge of scripture
• She was getting pally waith a scally in the alley Giving head for gear She called a spade a spade Got slit from ear to ear I showed no decorum Spilled my heart out on the forum Like a snapshot of the most tragic day Carl is kept sedated,for the frontman elevated While McGee does all he can to ruin my band and keep me out the way In this industry of fools, musclemen and ghouls If you're not a puppet or a muppet then you might as well call it a day The truth gets so distorted The wall scrapings get snorted I'm welcome back if I give up crack But you gave me my first pipe anyway
• You should get some sun on your face We've been sitting like a lord in the bath for days It's getting like I don't even know you
• It's one and the same, one and the same What's the use between death and glory? Hard to choose between death and glory Happy endings they never bored me Happy endings, they still don't bore me They have a way, a way to make you pay And to make you toe the line Now I'm severing the ties because I'm so clever but clever ain't wise
• Make no mistake She sheds her skin like a snake On the dirty road to fame.
• Now I can deal with all the blood on my shoes, The holes in my sole, My spirit is tainted and, Oh, all my tears are painted
• What did I dream? Oh, what did I dream? No one can keep me from my... No one could keep me from my... No fucker gonna keep me from my... Oh, what did I dream?
• Doff your cap and raise your glasses, Make a toast to the boring classes I'm burning your secrets to keep me warm.
• And he's crossing the road, He's picking up his Daily...Star
• Once upon a time... When the cold wind that blows, when the cold wind that blows in my heart, was a summer breeze and she would meet me in Chinatown, for opium and a bumming and she always brought me flowers but I spared you those old bollards Or songs that I couldn't play But every giro day she'd dress me like a lady boy And take me out of the way Don't let the horse chase the new deal away, no If we make love in the morning I see your eyes look like two pins in your head
• Oh promises, promises I know you've heard them all before Love is, love is, love is, love is, love is... Oh well, it's just around the corner
• Why should I wait until tomorrow? I've already been I've already seen All the sorrow thats in store
• There's a slow train rumbling east of a place called Eden And the wind blowing in proud as the trees upon the plain And a stranger's voice talked to me of liberty and freedom Yeah, it seems like he done gone wrong again And he wears that hat like shame Well he tasted the fruit of another And when his Margie, when she discovered Said she's gonna love him ten times more Ain't nobody's business if she do
• There's a man who came to stay The boy he replaced, disappeared without a trace. Stole all my songs and my style away No-one would say what they wanted to say So he was king for a day. If you sail into the sun Beware the eyes of green And if the whole world tells you 'you are the one' I defy you not to believe them, my son...
• I see paint-cracked walls stained with shite Long long lock-up days Cold lonely nights And I think to myself ... what a wonderful world I see men touching cocks Saying 'watcha pete' Screams from below Shit parcels in me bum And I think to myself ... I see my true love He's the DADDY
• What are you thinking when you see Pete Doherty self-destruct? - He's such an intelligent man. I completely understand, I just understand.
• I think I felt a bit trapped before I met Pete. Have you seen The Lavender Hill Mob? Alec Guinness plays this wonderful, colourful person who locks it all up and goes through the motions. I always felt a bit like that. But then I met the Pigman and he said, 'You can actually knock that on the head and get out.' So we threw ourselves into eternity. And it worked.
• He's a sweet kid, I've met him a few times. He's not the genius everyone makes him out to be. In fact, far from a genius if his new album's anything to go by. He'll go down in history as a Morrissey and Marr or Lennon and McCartney type character. Him and Carl were great for each other. Apart they'll probably be shocking. There's a lot of hypocrisy in the British press about drugs. The people who write the stories are usually off their heads on cocaine anyway.
• Pete is incredibly frustrating, yet you can't help but like him. The trouble is, he knows it.
• I immediately fell for him; not only as a musician and poet - he has a rare grace, as well.

peter doherty