Tom Morello Quotes

Quotes about:

Books Children Choices Country Fighting Funny Justice

My music is made for the people who are willing to stand up to change this world themselves.

Tom Morello

People, World, Made

Source: www.pbs.org

38 Copy quote
A musicians or artists responsibility is a simple one, and that is, through your music to tell the truth.

Tom Morello

Responsibility, Artist, Simple

45 Copy quote
A good song should make you wanna tap your foot and get with your girl. A great song should destroy cops and set fire to the suburbs. I'm only interested in writing great songs.

Tom Morello

Girl, Song, Writing

52 Copy quote
Always question the authority.

Tom Morello

Authority

6 Copy quote
America touts itself as the land of the free, but the number one freedom that you and I have is the freedom to enter into a subservient role in the workplace. Once you exercise this freedom you’ve lost all control over what you do, what is produced, and how it is produced. And in the end, the product doesn’t belong to you. The only way you can avoid bosses and jobs is if you don’t care about making a living. Which leads to the second freedom: the freedom to starve.

Tom Morello

Jobs, Exercise, Land

"Modern Happiness: Springsteen and the American Dream" by Craig Werner, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 24, 2012.

57 Copy quote
Music, I think, is best when it honestly explores personal demons, and it stirs around in the silt of the psyche to find out what's really there.

Tom Morello

Thinking, Demon, Personal Demons

"Tom Morello on solo album, politics and racism". Interview with Denise Quan, www.cnn.com. September 29, 2011.

42 Copy quote
Paul Ryan's love for Rage Against The Machine is amusing, because he is the embodiment of the machine that our music has been raging against for two decades

Tom Morello

Funny, Music, Two

65 Copy quote
The most powerful music is music with purpose.

Tom Morello

Funny, Inspiring, Powerful

15 Copy quote
Bad presidents make for great music, and I'm gonna do my best to provide it.

Tom Morello

President, Great Music

22 Copy quote
I've always been on a personal mission to save the guitar.

Tom Morello

Guitar, Missions, Personal Mission

7 Copy quote
The skin you're in makes choices for you...

Tom Morello

Choices, Skins

"Song: Maximum Firepower (One Man Revolution)". April 24, 2007.

11 Copy quote
When you wanna rock hard, children, lean on F#.

Tom Morello

Children, Rocks, Hard

20 Copy quote
This unprecedented racism, bigotry and proto-fascist agenda that Donald Trump is trying to shove down America's throat has unleashed the resistance that will dethrone him.

Tom Morello

America, Racism, Trying

Source: www.billboard.com

16 Copy quote
If aliens came down and challenged us to a Battle of the Bands to decide the fate of Planet Earth, I would feel very confident putting early Van Halen forward as our champion.

Tom Morello

Fate, Champion, Battle

31 Copy quote
There's a lot of injustice in the world and it's what I sing about in my music and what I try to confront in my life as an activist.

Tom Morello

Trying, World, Injustice

Source: www.pbs.org

19 Copy quote
In America, we have freedom of choice. But some are free to choose between Lamborghini and Rolls Royce while others are free to choose which dumpster they're going to have their meal out of next. Some are free to choose which, you know, homes and farms to foreclosed on, while others choose which bridge they're going to sleep under tonight.

Tom Morello

Sleep, Home, Choices

Source: www.truth-out.org

5 Copy quote
Sacrifice and neon lights, Slaveships don't wait, Love many, trust few, And don't be late...

Tom Morello

Sacrifice, Light, Slave Ships

"Song: One Man Revolution". April 24, 2007.

19 Copy quote
Charles Manson loved the Beatles but didn’t understand them. Governor Chris Christie loves Bruce Springsteen but doesn’t understand him. And Paul Ryan is clueless about his favorite band, Rage Against the Machine.

Tom Morello

Clueless, Band, Machines

"Tom Morello: 'Paul Ryan Is the Embodiment of the Machine Our Music Rages Against'" by Tom Morello, www.rollingstone.com. August 16, 2012.

31 Copy quote
Music and the arts feed our souls, but a decent wage puts food on the table. Musicians, fans of music, and grassroots political organizations are a potent force to fight for social justice.

Tom Morello

Art, Fighting, Organization

19 Copy quote
The way corporate media likes to portray America is as a homogenous whole that high-five's each other at the Super Bowl. But what we have is a grotesque disparity between the rich and poor that is only getting wider.

Tom Morello

Media, America, Way

21 Copy quote
I think I was meant to be a musician who speaks his mind about social justice issues. And I grew up in a lower middle class family, but a family that had enough money to buy a $50 guitar and a $50 amplifier, and had a basement to rehearse in. What I think the global human cost of this horrific poverty is how many Mozarts or curers of cancer are slaving away in the Maquiladoras along the Tijuana border, or in the Indonesian sweat shops? There are billions of people who will never become the people they could be, or the people they were meant to be, due to crushing poverty.

Tom Morello

Crush, Cancer, Thinking

"Tom Morello Leads The Occupy 'Guitarmy'". Interview with Diane Sweet, crooksandliars.com. May 22, 2012.

7 Copy quote
Poverty is curable, but it’s just not done, because it's not profitable. And that is the kind of violence that's perpetuated on humanity.

Tom Morello

Humanity, Done, Poverty

Interview with Robin Grearson, logger.believermag.com. August 27, 2013.

4 Copy quote
I don't want to leave this mess around my children to clean up. I want to swing absolutely as hard as I can to straighten things out before they get to the age where it starts hurting them.

Tom Morello

Hurt, Children, Swings

Source: www.pbs.org

17 Copy quote
The problem is not cop killers...it's killer cops.

Tom Morello

Killers, Problem, Cop

10 Copy quote
In my own way, I was a rebellious kid.

Tom Morello

Kids, Way, Rebellious

9 Copy quote

Latest quotes from interviews

"Every story has a point of view and whether it's by what one chooses to include or exclude from a story or whether it's a very specific agenda that is pushed, there is no such thing as objective media. Once you realize that it's more than just a marketplace of ideas, it's a battleground of ideas that are suppressed and the ideas that are pushed forward in the mainstream media are the ones that independent media has a chance to address. I think that the democratization of media in that way can be very helpful in allowing the truth to come out in a way that it might not on CNN or FOX."

- Tom Morello,

www.truth-out.org, added Dec 3, 2017

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