Pete Townshend

Grouch, spoiler, self-obsessed creative, insecure and pretentious self-styled artist.
Here is a selection of quotes from Pete's interviews through the years.

[Pete Townshend @Pete_Townshend]

I don't have romantic misconceptions about musical instruments – they're just wood, probably far more useful as pulp than anything else.

[Pete Townshend @Pete_Townshend]

Just when we learn how to live, we die, and I can’t change how I’m perceived.

[Pete Townshend @Pete_Townshend]

Music changes the way you live, in the world. It changes the way you see it. But it doesn't change the world itself.

[Pete Townshend @Pete_Townshend]

If you want to change the world, you have to get out there and change it. Music is not going to change it

[Pete Townshend @Pete_Townshend]

The guitar to me is still an engine; it's a rhythm, it's a canvas.

[Pete Townshend @Pete_Townshend]

Summer Blog: http://t.co/M59Uj5LH

[Pete Townshend @Pete_Townshend]

John Entwistle. It's ten years since his shocking death in Las Vegas. http://t.co/pZxtjJ6m

[Pete Townshend @Pete_Townshend]

I am not proud of the fact that I'm an entertainer. I'm proud of the fact that I'm an artist. Any cunt can be an entertainer.

[Pete Townshend @Pete_Townshend]

In Quadrophenia I turned our errors, and our glories, into a rock poem. It may have saved lives.

[Pete Townshend @Pete_Townshend]

The Who is now a brand, not a band; but it is a brand that is upheld by its audience, not an industry or a cynical moneymaking machine.

[Pete Townshend @Pete_Townshend]

I never thought about this, but if I was ever going to put my name to a line of guitars, they'd have to be indestructible. (1996)

[Pete Townshend @Pete_Townshend]

One of the reasons I went to Jim Marshall to say 'build me a big Marshall amp' was because I wanted to shut the fucking audience up. (1994)

[Pete Townshend @Pete_Townshend]

Pete Townshend - WHO I AM: A Memoir: http://t.co/8Ch57ibq

[Pete Townshend @Pete_Townshend]

Everything I do is driven by the same mechanic:a desire to expiate childhood pain through music.I want this for myself and for my audience.

[Pete Townshend @Pete_Townshend]

I'm still rather hard on the people who feel they can use words to change the world. We need defence, action and guitarists. (2012)

[Pete Townshend @Pete_Townshend]

If there were too many Madonnas in this world we'd all want Johnny Rotten back. I want him back anyway. (2001)

[Pete Townshend @Pete_Townshend]

We, The Who, were never in any danger of getting obsessed with the mod image because we were not so much part of it as a mirror. (1971)

[Pete Townshend @Pete_Townshend]

Mick Jagger will eventually become the Chuck Berry of the Sixties, constantly parodying himself on stage. (...)

[Pete Townshend @Pete_Townshend]

(...) And this is the inherent danger that the Who are so desperately trying to avoid. (1975)

[Pete Townshend @Pete_Townshend]

It used to hurt when Keith Richards said, "Pete, you think too much. Get down and play your guitar." (1987)