Quotes By Pete Townshend

What I took back, because of my exposure to the Jewish music of the 30s and the 40s in my upbringing with my father, was that kind of theatrical songwriting. It was always a part of my character. This desire to make people laugh.

I only really started to go to plays and to be interested in drama 20 years ago when as an artist I was already well-rounded. I think I'm more disciplined today.

What the Who is all about is exactly that and it always has been. If it exists today for this concert, it's in response again to a function which is happening out there on the street.

It's an ordinary day for Brian. Like, he died every day, you know.

Early British pop was helped tremendously by the writing of Bob Dylan who had proved you could write about political and quite controversial subjects. Certainly what we did followed on from what was happening with the angry young men in the theatre.

I know how it feels to be a woman because I am a woman. And I won't be classified as just a man.

I bought a Dutch barge and turned it into a recording studio. My plan was to go to Paris and record rolling down the Seine.

Some of our early work was two minutes twenty when it actually came out on vinyl, very, very, very short. Sometimes if you made a three-minute record they would make you do an edited version for radio, particularly in America.

Bob Dylan did the first really long record - Like A Rolling Stone - I think it was four minutes.