Tony Wilson quotes

View Quote [First address to camera; after his hang-gliding news report] You're going to see a lot more of that sort of thing in the picture. I don't want to say too much, don't want to spoil it. I'll just say one word: 'Icarus'. If you get it, great. If you don't, that's fine too. But you should probably read more.

View Quote I'm being postmodern, before it was fashionable.

View Quote [At a gig at the Hacienda] And tonight something equally epoch-making is taking place. See? They're applauding the DJ. Not the music, not the musician, not the creator, but the medium. This is it. The birth of rave culture. The beatification of the beat. The dance age. This is the moment when even the white man starts dancing. Welcome to Manchester.

View Quote I'm a minor character in my own story.

View Quote This scene didn't actually make it to the final cut. I'm sure it'll be on the DVD.

View Quote [About the music scene surrounding the Hacienda] It was like being on a fantastic fairground ride, centrifugal forces throwing us wider and wider. But it's all right, because there's this brilliant machine at the center that's going to bring us back down to earth. That was Manchester. That is the Hacienda. Now imagine the machine breaks. For a while, it's even better, because you're really flying. but then, you fall, because nobody beats gravity.

View Quote Most of all, I love Manchester. The crumbling warehouses, the railway arches, the cheap abundant drugs. That's what did it in the end. Not the money, not the music, not even the guns. That is my heroic flaw: my excess of civic pride.

View Quote Factory Records are not actually a company. We are an experiment in human nature. You're labouring under the misapprehension that we actually have a deal with, er, with our, our bands. That we have any kind of a contract, er, at all, and I'm afraid we, er, we don't because that's, er, that's the sum total of the paperwork to do with Factory Records, deal with, er, their various bands.

View Quote I have protected myself from ever having to sell out by having nothing to sell out.

View Quote [To Martin Hannett] You can't threaten me, Martin. You're a big man, but you're out of shape. Although you could sit on me.

View Quote Energy, energy? Energy is, is, it's nothing more than a lot of new age hokum masquerading as spirituality.

View Quote [About the Happy Mondays] Every band needs it's own special chemistry. And Bez was a very good chemist.

View Quote [After a stoned Martin Hannett tries to set fire to him] I am not a piece of hash. I'm in charge of Factory Records. I think.

View Quote Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's the latest craze sweeping the Pennines. I've got to be honest with you... right now I'd rather be SWEEPING the Pennines.

View Quote [after Shaun Ryder fires a gun in his general direction] You want to be careful with that, Shaun. You could take somebody's eye out.

View Quote Jazz is the last refuge of the untalented. Jazz musicians enjoy themselves more than anyone listening to them does.

View Quote [Whilst hosting 'Wheel of Fortune'] Welcome to the Wheel of Fortune. There it is, the wheel that throughout the centuries has been used as a symbol for the vicissitudes of life. Boethius himself in his great work 'The Consolation of Philosophy' compares history to a great wheel, hoisting us up, then dropping us down again. "Inconsistency is my very essence" -says the wheel- "Raise yourself up on my spokes if you wish, but don't complain when you plunge back down" Now spin the wheel.

View Quote [When caught receiving an act of oral sex from a prostitute by his wife Lindsay] It's not what it looks like, love!

View Quote [After Lindsay storms off when catching him with the prostitute; to Lindsay] I love you! [To the prostitute] Don't stop.

View Quote [When catching Lindsay having sex with another man out of spite] I just got a blowjob. That's full penetration.