I enjoy gigging in industrial towns. It seems to be where I go down the best. Somewhere where they have a history of manufacturing, they're my favourite places to play.
— John Cooper Clarke
At the beginning, there was no chance I'd get published so I thought I'd give it a go live. I had to perform in rock band places and working men's clubs, where you wouldn't expect to find poetry. I ploughed a lonely furrow.
I crack myself up. Even I don't know what I'm going to say next.
My dad was an electrical engineer.
They're very different things, a poem and a song, you wouldn't think they would be, but they are.
Not everyone is prepared for fame, not even at the level I got it. One minute you're just a face in the crowd, next minute everyone wants a piece of you.
There've been lots of positive changes in the city since I worked at Salford Tech in the seventies, and I'm pleased to be known as Salford's Bard and to have helped put it on the map.
Most cities are the same.
Maybe there are luckier people than me, but I don't know who that would be. I feel pretty lucky. I've had a nice life - I don't know how I could be luckier.
I've had a few jobs, but if you want to be a writer, you're better off getting a job that doesn't require that you do anything.
There is a certain sentimental vibe in my home town of Manchester, which you would sort of expect.
It amazes me there are movies about writers… such inert, uneventful lives.
I had a million jobs before I managed to make a living out of poetry.
I don't work with anybody I don't like, just for the attention.
All the best musicians started out in church; Jesus invented rock 'n' roll.
I got to play The Vortex in London with the Buzzcocks, the Fall, me and Johnny Thunders And The Heartbreakers. That was a serious Manchester night.
I've got a speech impediment.
I love being in a car.
I eat like a pig. Tripe is the only thing I won't eat.
I don't have secrets, my life's an open book.
The main thing a poem ought to be is musical. It should be rhythmic. You should hear it as a musical piece in your head as you're writing it.
I'd like to be rich, but without all the downside of fame.
Literally' - I'm not having it; people can't go around saying 'literally.' Otherwise, what's literal? There's not another word for literally: if it isn't figurative or metaphorical, what is it? It's literal: there's no substitute.
Too many memoirs focus on childhoods and it's a bit turgid.
I'm not giving away sartorial secrets but the trousers I wear cost 19 quid.
Idleness - a job that you have to go to, but not necessarily do anything - is the poet's friend.
I'm not much of a team player when it comes to making records, I've got to say.
When you're doing poetry like mine that rhymes, it's very easy to sound like a song that didn't work out!
My favourite writers are columnists.
I love singing. I'm a great singer.
The '80s were a lost decade.
Find a poet whose style you like, emulate that style, then deal with things that you know about - don't waste your time looking for your own style.' I wish I could remember who told me that, because I'd like to congraulate him. I've emulated all the old guys - Tennyson, Alexander Pope.
My look was based on the Madison Avenue guy who's just lost his job. Ivy League suit a bit scuzzed up, an outgrown layer cut and five o'clock shadow.
Being unapologetic means never having to say you're sorry.
Lyrics became important for a while in the late Seventies. Patti Smith was a poet and a rock star, as much one as the other, the distinctions were a bit blurred and then you get swept up in it. Punk poet, it's a good enough term.
Doris Day was the perfect woman.
My declining allure is a source of great sadness to me.
Me, I listen to all kinds of music, really.
Fame just ain't a natural situation. But I shouldn't have worried because everyone thought I was a bit famous even before I'd done anything; people just assumed I was famous.
I'm a great reader of credits; I never leave the cinema before they finish.
I love the Arctic Monkeys!
I've always lived all over the place, and left Manchester the minute I was old enough to steal a car.
You can always find something better to do than writing when you're at home.
From social pariah to King of the World? It's taken 45 years, so I've been able to adjust to it!
You know how the Marvel Comics superheroes formed themselves into the Justice League of America - Batman, Flash and the rest. Why did Superman join? He never needed any help.
When the punk rock thing happened, I thought, ‘Right, I have one chance here to be seen as part of some wider social phenomenon.'
Well, I've obviously been a great source of inspiration to the academic population of Salford! They're citing me as a major contribution to their upward trajectory!
The greatest threat to any artist is surrounding themselves with people who love everything they do.
I wanted to get rich, like anyone from my background.
I've been kept from honest employment for a long, long time now. Thank God!
