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The point is that, like Richard Hell says, rock 'n' roll is an arena in which you recreate yourself, and all this blathering about authenticity is just a bunch of crap. The Clash are authentic because their music carries such brutal conviction, not because they're Noble Savages.

— Lester Bangs Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung (1988)

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More quotes by Lester Bangs

Realizing that life is precious the natural tendency is to trample on it, like laughing at a funeral.

Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung (1988)

The extravagant and ostentatious lifestyles that pass for charisma in a time when almost anybody talks about charisma but if you think about it there's precious little to be seen.

Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung (1988)

A hero is a goddam stupid thing to have in the first place and a general block to anything you might wanta accomplish on your own.

Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung (1988)

John Lennon at his best despised cheap sentiment and had to learn the hard way that once you've made your mark on history those who can't will be so grateful they'll turn it into a cage for you.

Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung (1988)

All the proliferating falsifications of what I and everyone I know experienced once in what it is now so convenient to call the "fifties" or "sixties," as if life was really measured or lived in arbitrary decades, when the history books are sold like comix.

Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung (1988)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Lester Bangs (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.