All great rock bands have a little dirt in their faces.

A guy walks up to me and asks `What`s Punk?`. So I kick over a garbage can and say `That`s punk!`. So he kicks over a garbage can and says `That`s Punk?`, and I say `No that`s trendy!

The most dramatic entrance for an autograph was probably when I was in Edmonton Alberta Canada or... whatever, and she jumped on my back and asked for the autograph. She was so cool and she said she wanted to be in a band... Well, whoever that was, I totally support you!

I write everything on a xylophone!

Punk will never be dead to me. It`s my life. I can never just drop this lifestyle. It embodies me.

If I look at my old lyrics, they seem to be full of rage, but empty. There was an emptiness in my life.

Minority is about being an individual. It`s like you have to sift through the darkness to find your place and be that individual you want to be your entire life.

[on his female fans] They have got bad taste. I am not a good-looking guy.

Punk is not just the sound, the music. Punk is a lifestyle.

[on if he believes in heaven] I consider myself an agnostic, so I`m not really sure. I kind of believe that there`s something possibly out there. I`m not stubborn enough to cancel that out. I believe there`s a higher power somewhere. I just don`t know what it is. I really like a lot of Catholic symbolism. Me and Adrienne collect a lot of crucifixes and rosary beads and stuff like that. In our house, we have a lot of candles and stuff like that.

What annoys the hell out of me is the arrogance of some people. They don`t even listen to our music, they decided in advance that they don`t like it.

If you have children, you don`t want to have drugs and drinks in the house. It`s just not good.

Adrienne is the only woman I will ever love.

Moshing and broken glass just don`t go together.

I never thought being obnoxious would get me where I am today.

The thing is, acoustic could be like a four-letter word to a lot of kids.

[on the media] You know, I`ve made it a point not to read a thing. From what people have been telling me, everything has been really positive. Hey, it`s the kids who are going to buy our records and they`re not going to read things written in Entertainment Weekly anyway. Critics never really want to like my band. I think they have this thing up their asses that we are a lesser band now. They feel we weren`t the originators of punk rock or we are not cool or whatever. So everything that comes from these people sounds somehow backhanded, like with the Spin piece. For a while, we were a best kept secret and for a long time none of these bigger magazines knew about Look Out Records or for that matter the Berkeley scene in general. At the time, I think that irritated them a bit. To them, if they don`t know about it, it obviously wasn`t cool enough to begin with.

Our passion is our strength.

We put everything we had into this record, just like we do with every other record that we make.

People are so damned afraid that one day they might wake up and discover that they`ve grown old.

No one`s really happy anyway, it`s not human.

School is practice for the future, and practice makes perfect. But nobody`s perfect, so why practice?

I hate celebrities. I really hate them.

There`s nothing wrong with being a loser, it just depends on how good you are at it.

Punk is always something that`s going to be with us and to try and explain that would be stupid at this point.

One thing I want to teach my son is sensitivity to other people. I want to teach him not to be this macho freak.

A guy walks up to me and asks, "What`s Punk?". So I kick over a garbage can and say. "That`s punk!". So he kicks over the garbage can and says, "That`s Punk?", and I say, "No that`s trendy!"

I don`t want to limit myself musically. It would be really limiting if we`d neglect something we really want to do, like explore other styles of music.

If Britney would paint her ass green, I`m sure you could spot green asses all over LA as soon as the word was out.

I`d love to go to art school. I`d love to learn how to draw. I`d love to be fluent in Spanish. I`d like to be a brain surgeon.

I don`t want to live in an ivory tower, being the songwriter who just turns inward.

I don`t like LA. The majority just seem to be so artificial. Look at how they worship everything they think is fashionable. Isn`t it sick?

We`re not a political band. We don`t want to tell people what to do or what to think. We just want to tell them to think.

There are a lot of bands who claim to be punk and they only play the music, they have no clue what it`s all about. It`s a lifestyle. It`s not about popularity and all that crap.

I think it`s your own choice if you turn from an angry young man to a bitter, old bastard.

I never thought that being obnoxious would get me where I am now.

If journalists ask you again and again about the same bands, you`ll end up saying you hate them just because you`re so fed up with being asked all those stupid questions.

My mom was from Oklahoma, hence the name Billie Joe . . . It`s not William Joseph, it`s "just" Billie Joe.

Making mistakes is a lot better than not doing anything.

I sound like an Englishman impersonating an American impersonating an Englishman.

Music - that`s been my education. There`s not a day that goes by that I take it for granted.

[on what he would like to do instead of music] I`ve done some producing, that I can do. But acting for me, I`m pretty sure I don`t know how to do that. I really don`t want to go through a process of trying to figure out how to do it. I think as soon as you start acting that realness of you that people love is gone because you`re pretending to be something else on screen.

A lot of people, when they talk to me, I can`t wait for them to shut up. Like, shut up. you`re a moron. They have nothing to say, you know?

Punk has always been about doing things your own way. What it represents for me is ultimate freedom and a sense of individuality.

I approach playing acoustic guitar more of as a percussive instrument. It`s fragile. I don`t have a lot of finesse when it comes to my guitar playing.

I`m not as depressed as I used to be. The Prozac`s working!

What is going on in America is extreme. The youth cult, they worship youth so much it`s almost paranoid. And LA is the Mecca of it all; they`re taking it to the hilt.

A punk concert isn`t fun without a pit.

I sort of enjoy the fact that I`m misunderstood most of the time. That`s fine.

I`m very monogamous.

School is practice for future life, practice makes perfect and nobodys perfect, so why practice?

I`m a father. It isn`t just my life any more. I don`t want my kid finding bottles in the house or seeing his father completely smashed.

"A guy walks up to me and asks `What`s Punk?`. So I kick over a garbage can and say `That`s punk!`. So he kicks over the garbage can and says `That`s Punk?`, and I say `No that`s trendy!`

"Well, you know, I look at myself in the morning and yes, yeah I-I am a God."

"B-I-L-L-I-E J-O-E. My real name is Billie Joe. And it`s southern, my moms from Oklahoma and that`s how I got the name."

"I fucking hate Lynyrd Skynyrd, I`ve always hated Lynyrd Skynyrd. Fuckin` backwards ass hillbilly shit."

There`s nothing wrong with being a loser, it just depends on how good you are at it."

"School is practice for the future, and practice makes perfect, and nobodies perfect, so why practice?"

"I`m not gonna say anything inspirational; I`m just gonna fucking swear a lot."

"You think your life is tough? Try being a parent!"

"All saints are gonna be there? Tre, you might get laid!"

"Are you canadian? Oh, okay, `cause you`re sure as hell acting like one right now."