We’ve come to wish you an unhappy birthday, Morrissey. The Pope of Mope turns 57 today. A recent winner of Literary Review’s Bad Sex in Fiction award, potential candidate in London’s mayoral race, and master of the put-down, Moz’s grumpiness precedes him. And while one only needs to look to the brooding wit and bitter humor of his lyrics to bask in Morrissey’s gloom, the charming man never misses an opportunity to make a sharp-tongued observation about the miserableness of life and culture’s feel-bad moments. We’ve gathered some of Morrissey’s most morose quotes. Lest he worry that we got soft on him, tomorrow we’ll be sure to tell him that it’s not his birthday anymore. Did he really think we meant all those syrupy, sentimental things that we said?
“I normally live in Los Angeles, if you can call it normal living.”
“I despise royalty. I always have done. It’s fairy story nonsense.”
“Rave is the refuge for the mentally deficient. It’s made by dull people for dull people.”
“I find Christmas very difficult.”
“When you’re a teenager and in your early twenties it seems desperately eternal and excruciatingly painful. Whereas as you grow older you realize that most things are excruciatingly painful and that is the human condition.”
“I don’t have relationships at all. It’s out of the question.”
“It’s hard to be a man.”
“The smell of burning animals is making me sick. I can smell burning flesh . . . and I hope to God it’s human.”
“I’m bereft of spiritual solutions.”
“Music that is in the charts today is quite dreadful. I find it a great honor that I have never been considered for awards, such as NME, etc. It is a personal victory. All awards shows should be banned!”
“Clothes are no longer the window of the soul.”
“Long hair is an unpardonable offense which should be punishable by death.”
“Sex is a waste of batteries.”
“The body changes shape and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“The fire in the belly is essential, otherwise you become Michael Buble — famous and meaningless.”
“I really can’t survive being misquoted.”
“People with receding hairlines never know much about anything.”
“I never enjoyed life in my twenties, not one minute of it. It was a test of endurance that I’m surprised I survived. Professionally, of course, I was doing very well but personally it couldn’t have been worse or more difficult for me if I’d been living in a mud hut in Leeds.”
“I always thought my genitals were the result of some crude practical joke.”
“When they bury me in a church and chuck earth on my grave, I’d like the words ‘Well, at least he tried’ engraved on my tombstone.”
“There’s no point asking me anything about romance because I know nothing about it, and that’s just my tough luck, end of story.”
“Don’t talk to me about people who are ‘nice’ cause I have spent my whole life in ruins because of people who are ‘nice.'”
“I do think it’s possible to go through life and never fall in love, or find someone who loves you.”
“I really do think it’s a great musical stench. I find it very offensive, artless and styleless. To me it’s very reminiscent of thuggery, pop thuggery. I don’t want to hear it at all [on rap music].”
“My life is unrelenting grey, relieved only by passing moments of absolute blackness.”
“I was happy being sad until I visited an analyst; and now I’m bored with being sad. Progress.”
“Bring me the head of Elton John . . . which is one instance in which meat would not be murder, if it were served on a plate.”
“What’s the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning? Wish I hadn’t.”
“Life would be so colorful if only I had a drink problem.”
“I am capable of looking on the bright side — I just don’t do it very often.”