Patriotism in America, as I understand it, is a matter of suffering, when the country fails to live up to its promises, or actively betrays them. — Greil Marcus Copy Share Image
As I write, Johnny Rotten's first moments in "Anarchy in the U.K." - a rolling earthquake of a laugh, a buried shout, then hoary words somehow stripped of all claptrap and set down in the city streets - I AM AN ANTICHRIST - Remain as powerful as anything I know. Listening to the record today - listening to the way… — Greil Marcus Copy Share
Elvis' early music has drama because as he sang he was escaping limits. — Greil Marcus Copy Share Image
You're going to react to a painting in a way that the painting demands you react. — Greil Marcus Copy Share Image
No failure in America, whether of love or money, is ever simple; it is always a kind of betrayal, of a mass of shadowy,… — Greil Marcus Copy Share Image
“[Listening to a song] one could experience a freedom from one's physical body, and from one's social body - the mask you wore to go about in public among those who thought they knew you, an unchosen mask of nervousness and tradition, the mask that, when owrn too long, makes the face behind it shrivel up and rot away. For… — Greil Marcus Copy Share
Records that were the sound of somebody - more often than not, a she - speaking with a voice that had never been heard before. Somebody who'd never had the nerve to speak up before. I felt: 'I wanna meet these people.' Which is unusual for me: I don't usually want to meet the people who are making music that… — Greil Marcus Copy Share
I never could understand - it was impossible for me to get my head around - what the furor was, what the sense of… — Greil Marcus Copy Share Image
There is no pop category, let alone any infinitely gene-sliced genre name, to contain the lead in Rihanna's voice in 'Needed Me.' — Greil Marcus Copy Share Image
I'm a fan of Oliver Stone. I like his movies, I like his excess, and I think he has a great capacity for empathy… — Greil Marcus Copy Share Image
Bob Dylan continues to release odd and unsettling records, and to do odd and unsettling things on stage. So the term 'still' seems meaningless… — Greil Marcus Copy Share Image
When you're writing criticism or thinking critically, to draw a very limited minor conclusion from solid evidence is really not thinking. — Greil Marcus Copy Share Image
My ideal reader is somebody who trips over a copy of my book on the sidewalk; then they pick it up and read as… — Greil Marcus Copy Share Image
