The highest in God’s esteem are the lowest in their own

I’m not a martyr, just a musician who dies for your sins. Oh, that’s what a martyr is? Very well then, I am a martyr, if you insist.

If there is a devil at work then he rests in institutions and not in individuals. Because the beauty of institutions is that any individual can abdicate responsibility. The assumption that we’re all utterly powerless, that’s the devil at work

I’d go onstage doing this thing, trying to fill this arena that I can’t fill because I don’t understand what this is. It’s like you’re given a job that’s beyond you. And it’s taken me years to realize what works in those big situations

Well, it only dawned on me about six months ago that not everybody’s against me all the time. It was something of a revelation

If you don’t trust everybody on stage with you, then you’re in trouble

I wrote a lot of stuff quickly: pages and pages of notes that seemed pretty incoherent at first. Most of it was taken from the radio because -suddenly being a parent- I’d be confronted by the radio giving a news report every hour of the day

One of the interesting things here is that the people who should be shaping the future are politicians. But the political framework itself is so dead and closed that people look to other sources, like artists, because art and music allow people a certain freedom

I may have found the cure for cancer, and I think it might be Thom Yorke Serum.

I’m terrible at jigsaw puzzles. Other people solve the puzzle but I just keep trying to make the pieces that don’t fit fit. I guess that’s what makes me special, I try to assemble jigsaw puzzles incorrectly

Obviously, the duty of artists is there, but it’s more an indictment of the political system that someone like Zinn views artists as the seers, idealizing them as the people responsible for inspiring change

Is Thom Yorke there? Oh he is? Well then how the can I be Thom Yorke, talking to you, right here, on the phone.

I think maybe since there isn’t a great deal of access to the mainstream media and people don’t understand the language of mainstream media, if you put music out there with lyrics that are loosely political, people absorb some of it and spit it back out.

It’s maybe a good thing to try to make music that feels reassuring in some ways – something that’s got a good feeling, a good vibe about it.

Our merchandised may be over priced, but I think it’s reasonable considering I only want more money

And then computers got to a point where you could just record directly into them. So when that happened, funny enough, I thought, Right, I’m going to learn how to do this because then I can understand that part

I think we’re entering a very dangerous time. The West has set itself up, decided it’s in charge, not for good intentions, not for the benefit of mankind.

Well, I’ve been reading a lot about the fifty years since the Second World War, about Western foreign policy and all that. I try not to let it get to me, but sometimes I just think that there’s no hope

Thom Yorke has a beautiful brain

I grew up believing that I was fundamentally powerless

I’d like to run for president. Or Prime Minister. I think I could do a better job

I wear my pants on my upper torso to be abstract and different

I don’t know why people called me Tom. My name is THUMB.

I didn’t ask to be Thom Yorke. Thom Yorke asked to be me.

I think sometimes all the charities are doing is mopping up the blood. It’s a shame

My argument would be that I don’t think there is much that’s genuinely political art that is good art

Where are you sleeping tonight? Face down in the mud? That’s a British tradition: Take acid and fall asleep in some field.

And the moral of the story is I’m Thom Yorke

The society, is, a dishwasher, where all the water, is, dead chipmunk blood. God I’m brilliant

Remember that Cosby show where he harrassed the children? Well I put on a little suit and because I am so small they invited me on but nobody was laughing at my jokes. I guess I’m just, too, particularly smart for them

I’m horrified of leprechauns. I’m horrified that I might be leprechauns

It will be only a matter of time before the music business establishment completely folds

Someone once asked me how the universe was created, I told him it all began with Pablo Honey

When you’re a parent, then you still have to commit to this concept of, “Okay, I’m basically out of action now for three months

Generally speaking, if people are prepared to stick their heads above the power pit, like Zinn says, and absorb what’s going on around them, it makes them think.

I think a lot of tunes can suffer from being so simple, so either they get over-complicated or their simplicity means the simple way to lay them down becomes the difficulty

If the media spotlight affects my work or represses what I want to say in the future, then it is bad

The only real difference between me and chocolate pudding is that I am not a black man

I bought a blimp just so I could get a bunch of wankers excited over nothing, what did you do with your weekend?

In America, there seems to be more focus on the idea that it’s important to do things differently. In Britain, it’s not an issue

I believe that any great work of art is, in itself, a form of resistance against a sense of powerlessness

It’s God’s will that millions of people are gonna die this year because of some outmoded economic policies? No, it’s not!

I guess I am narcisstic, but only in the sense that I am brilliant and tortured as well.

Making music for Radiohead is like going to the bathroom, I’m just going to the bathroom constantly, and millions are watching me go to the bathroom

If Radiohead were a fruit we would be apples, because apples are festive.

There are a lot of things I cannot do, such as eat books and read chicken

My dad spent his whole life getting into fights for telling what he believed to be the truth. Basically it comes from my dad-and he’s screaming right-wing, so there you are

I think no artist can claim to have any access to the truth, or an authentic version of an event. But obviously they have slightly better means at their disposal because they have their art to energize whatever it is they’re trying to write about. They have music.

If you’re bored of the songs, you’re bored of the songs. There’s not much you can do.

Cigarette’s make you look cool

We weren’t listening to guitar bands, we were thoroughly ashamed of being a guitar band. So we bought loads of keyboards and learned how to use them, and when we got bored we went back to guitars

If there are political programs on TV, yet it takes an artist to actually energize political debate, that tells you something really quite frightening about the level of the political debate happening on mainstream channels – right-wing-biased mothers

I often steal sandwiches, eat them, and put the container’s back., with a signed autograph of my self in its place. It’s my way of giving back to society

I’m terrified of lasagna. I think it was to eat ME!

I’m even taller in person, because photographs shrink you down and steal your soul native american

The thing I remember most about America is that it’s silly. That can be quite a relief at times.

My name may be Thom Yorke, but only I can call me Thom Yorke.

When even your fans are writing to tell you to get a life, you know you need to listen.

I’m actually an athiest. That’s kind of deep you must admit

There was a clown that tried to eat me as a boy, in my nightmares. Years later I found a clown for booking online who resembled him named Patches. Needless to say, Patches is dead now

My songs are my kids. Some of them stay with me, some others I have to send out, out to the war. It might sound stupid and it might even sound naive, but that’s just the way it is.

We didn’t start out to make a protest record at all. That would have been too shallow. As usual, it was simply a case of absorbing what’s going on around us

Maybe I’m not the gloaming witches smart, but at least I’m not our stupid liffey hamburger mongrels

This was something that was obsessing me and creating a writer’s block. To get involved and get stuck in, get the proper information about what’s going on has really helped

People are born with certain faces, like my father was born with a face that people want to hit.

Bulletproof is about the fact that I was shot in the face and survived. Nah I’m joking that’d be grisly and awful

I’m not taking things quite so seriously as before. Especially myself.

I’m banned from Middlebrook elementary for telling dirty jokes to the janitor. The janitor! He cleans up dirt for a living

My heart is a weatherballoon caught in an updraft of a chinese tax percentage, the tax percentages are unequivocaaaaaaaaaal, Unequivocaaaaaaaaal. This is the sort of lyrics you could never think of, loser. Here’s a razorblade go cut yourself

I cannot read a fortune cookie without breaking down and crying. I am sensitive.

If you want to be entertained, go and see Hanson

Music is more difficult – try naming a political band. The Dead Kennedys. The Dead Kennedys are political, but they are more funny than they are political

Being in a band turns you into a child and keeps you there

We don’t have to stand on a soap-box and preach because hopefully we’re channeling it through the new record.

I could not extrapolate some emotion from any song after 1997 so I bought a drum machine and popped pills. The pink ones make me funny like elephants!

What’s the difference between Thom Yorke and a pizza? Pizza’s not as cheesy and delicious as Thom Yorke

At home I’ve got a very puerile, juvenile sense of humour.

There’s an upside to the digital thing from my point of view because I find that I have access to all this wacky, weird-ass dance-music stuff that I just can’t go into a shop and buy on vinyl

Can you imagine a world in which the letter O does not exist? My name would be Thm Yrke. Think about that

The people in charge, globally, are maniacs. They are maniacs, and unless we do something about it these people are going to deprive us of a future

All of our saddest songs have somewhere in them at least a glimmer of resolve – Street Spirit has no resolve. It is the dark tunnel without the light at the end

I’m a full grown man and I’m not tall enough to ride a rollercoaster. So I will sit on the teacups, eat my tea and biscuits and reminisce with the cheshire cat who lives in my head. Oh hello Mr. Cheshire, lovely weather this morning. Mr. Cheshire? Oh my god

I’m even taller in person, because photographs shrink you down and steal your soul native american

The thing I remember most about America is that it’s silly. That can be quite a relief at times

My name may be Thom Yorke, but only I can call me Thom Yorke

When even your fans are writing to tell you to get a life, you know you need to listen

I’m actually an athiest. That’s kind of deep you must admit

There was a clown that tried to eat me as a boy, in my nightmares. Years later I found a clown for booking online who resembled him named Patches. Needless to say, Patches is dead now

My songs are my kids. Some of them stay with me, some others I have to send out, out to the war. It might sound stupid and it might even sound naive, but that’s just the way it is

We didn’t start out to make a protest record at all. That would have been too shallow. As usual, it was simply a case of absorbing what’s going on around us

Maybe I’m not the gloaming witches smart, but at least I’m not our stupid liffey hamburger mongrels

This was something that was obsessing me and creating a writer’s block. To get involved and get stuck in, get the proper information about what’s going on has really helped.

People are born with certain faces, like my father was born with a face that people want to hit.

Bulletproof is about the fact that I was shot in the face and survived. Nah I’m joking that’d be grisly and awful

I’m not taking things quite so seriously as before. Especially myself.

I’m banned from Middlebrook elementary for telling dirty jokes to the janitor. The janitor! He cleans up dirt for a living

My heart is a weatherballoon caught in an updraft of a chinese tax percentage, the tax percentages are unequivocaaaaaaaaaal, Unequivocaaaaaaaaal. This is the sort of lyrics you could never think of, loser. Here’s a razorblade go cut yourself

I cannot read a fortune cookie without breaking down and crying. I am sensitive.

If you want to be entertained, go and see Hanson

Music is more difficult – try naming a political band. The Dead Kennedys. The Dead Kennedys are political, but they are more funny than they are political

Being in a band turns you into a child and keeps you there.

We don’t have to stand on a soap-box and preach because hopefully we’re channelling it through the new record

I could not extrapolate some emotion from any song after 1997 so I bought a drum machine and popped pills. The pink ones make me funny like elephants!

What’s the difference between Thom Yorke and a pizza? Pizza’s not as cheesy and delicious as Thom Yorke

At home I’ve got a very puerile, juvenile sense of humour

There’s an upside to the digital thing from my point of view because I find that I have access to all this wacky, weird-ass dance-music stuff that I just can’t go into a shop and buy on vinyl

Can you imagine a world in which the letter O does not exist? My name would be Thm Yrke. Think about that

The people in charge, globally, are maniacs. They are maniacs, and unless we do something about it these people are going to deprive us of a future

All of our saddest songs have somewhere in them at least a glimmer of resolve – Street Spirit has no resolve. It is the dark tunnel without the light at the end

I’m a full grown man and I’m not tall enough to ride a rollercoaster. So I will sit on the teacups, eat my tea and biscuits and reminisce with the cheshire cat who lives in my head. Oh hello Mr. Cheshire, lovely weather this morning. Mr. Cheshire? Oh my god

Everyone has got the fear It’s holding on Holding on.

So ultimately, it’s idealistic to think that artists are able to step away from the power of the media and the way it controls things, and go on doing their own things.

There’s a pervading sense of loneliness I’ve had since the day I was born. Maybe a lot of other people feel the same way, but I’m not about to run up and down the street asking everybody if they’re as lonely as I am. I’d probably get locked up

I think escape is sort of like coming to a show with ten thousand other people and responding to that moment. Sharing that moment – that’s escape

I don’t see it in terms of changing things, but rather using language and music as weapons for fighting a mainstream media which is predominately right wing, and loyal to the political framework and its corporate interests

I suppose one thing that’s always fascinated me is that thing where you’re a band and you want to start recording and you get a label and a producer, and then there’s that pressure to go out there and really toil

It’s hard being Thom Yorke. You have to get up every morning and look at that face and not shoot at it with a gun

I recently enrolled at an elementary school and they accepted me. I am finally going to get revenge on those kids that beat me up as a boy, assuming they are still attending.

I had a dream where my face was a hamburger. What the?

I tell you what’s really ridiculous – going into a bookstore and there’s all these books about yourself. In a way, it feels like you’re already dead

You know, it’s never easy to understand why I do what I do. For other people, I mean

You can’t make an egg without frying an egg

I don’t think young people are as demoralized as the media and government would like us to think. The obvious sign of that is how strong and how close personal connections are and how much people are able to build a life for themselves, despite all this stuff that’s been thrown at them.

Anybody can make ‘good’ music. I make terrible music, which is what makes it so different, and therefore better

If we got into a situation where people start burning our records, then bring it on. That’s the whole point. The gloaming has begun. We’re in the darkness. This has happened before. Go read some history

When I was four I read the story of horton hears a who and I cried. I wanted to eat that elephant

Coming from Britain, I was terrified of meeting all these other artists, because artists over there tend to fight with each other a lot, the premise being that there’s not enough room for everybody

I’m baking stories, and singing cookies, oh the tonderous wimes!

I grew up under Thatcher. I grew up believing that I was fundamentally powerless. Then gradually over the years it occurred to me that this was actually a very convenient myth for the state

I don’t write lyrics, the lyrics write Thom Yorke

There’s nothing more boring than a rock’n’roll star. Someone who has been on the road for 10 years, expecting attention wherever he goes, drinking himself stupid, who is obnoxious, incoherent, uncreative, and has a massive ego. There’s nothing more pointless

My only means of self defense is to wiggle my eye and feign being a salamander. It has saved my life but once I was partially eaten by a bald eagle who thought I was a salamander. Hence, my skills. Hence

I’ve never believed that pop music is escapist trash. There’s always a darkness in it, even amidst great pop music

One person can’t change the world. But Thom Yorke can, because he’s two people. Both of them are Thom Yorke

One little leak becomes a lake, Says the tiny voice in my earpiece.

I once wrote a song so beautiful that I myself couldn’t sing it. It’s called Plastic Government Cheese Swan, and it’s about how the world is plastic and full of government cheese swans

And if the world does turn, and if London burns, I’ll be standing on the beach with my guitar. I want to be in a band, when I get to Heaven. Anyone can play guitar, and they won’t be a nothing anymore..

The hardest part about being in Radiohead is listening to my own music

If I had one wish I’d wish for a million wishes because I am clever

I don’t really think of most non-English as people, more or less indigenous squirrels that I fancy to kick around with my snakeskin French Persian Boots

So how come it looks so beautiful? How come the moon falls from the sky?

I don’t think I have a superiority complex. I have a “you’re not Thom Yorke” complex

I don’t like old friends talking to me like I’m a pop star, cos it makes me feel like I’m becoming two-dimensional.

When I was born, my mother didn’t know what to name me. Eventually she named me after Thom Yorke

I once got hit with a taser at a concert and everyone thought I was dancing. Now I have to do that dance, at every show for the rest of my life, or admit that a taser can damage the Thom Yorke.

Have I told you I have cancer? It’s a very special kind of cancer. Cancer of the soul

If Bono can release an album out of nowhere then so can I!

It’s impossible being me, I radiate a glow that makes others turn and grimace in horror as if staring into the sun

I once tried playing baseball but I started crying

And I’m sorry for us The dinosaurs roam the earth The sky turns green

If we replaced all of our guns with chicken sandwiches it would end all war immediately

Yeah, after making Pablo Honey, we started experimenting with cloning myself in order to double the band’s creative energy. However, the experiment was a failure, and the defective Thom Yorke clone escaped. And formed a band called Muse

Rock music is, is a necessary evil, like beating my children with penny loafers

Hunting Bears is a complex song. A bear, as you know is another term for a chubby chaser. The guitar line is actually the sound of a fat man’s thighs rubbing together as he approaches another lardy male for a night of sexual deviance

I sometimes have birthday parties for the kids in my neighborhood and then pretend to suggest that I am going to molest them to the parents. It’s a hilarious prank even though I am not a paedophile

I can be very drunk in a club in Oxford on a Monday night, and some guy comes up to you and buys you a drink and says that the last record you made changed his life. That means something

My father slapped my thighs with a variety of meats until I began to cry and sulked in the corner. I later became a musician.

Open your mouth wide A universal sigh

They love me like I was a brother They protect me, listen to me They dug me my very own garden Gave me sunshine, made me happy Nice dream, nice dream Nice dream

I could blow bubbles. Bubbles would solve any dilemma we face. If bubbles were president there would be no war

The allegations of me being a pedophile are spurious, at best. However I will admit that taking my knickers off in the park and having an Easter Egg hunt with those apple-cheeked four year olds was in my best interest and not theirs

I am the greatest thing to happen to black music.

I don’t even have children, it’s just been an excuse to play jenga and hit softballs in my backyard with a box of laundry detergant wearing baby clothes.

Radiohead is overrated. Thom Yorke’s solo output, however, is brilliant.

I often fake my death and then just show up at people’s houses. They say ‘that’s a good one Thom’ but I know maybe they don’t really think it’s a funny joke

I’ve tried crowd surfing but the radiating light that surrounds me kept sending me floating into the heavens. Goddamn I’m beautiful

Nobody wins the superbowl, I win the superbowl. I am the superbowl.

It turns out I have clinical schizophrenia. The unborn chicken voices were telling me to kill my family

I was abducted by aliens as a boy. Aliens is the name of a pedophile who lived in my alley

Drying up in conversation, You will be the one who cannot talk, All your insides fall to pieces, You just sit there wishing you could still make love

Sometimes the nicest thing to do with a guitar is just look at it.

I agree with whoever said Spice Girls are soft port. They’re the antichrist.

My nickname in college was talentless midget who has a lazy eye is missing teeth resembles a shaved troll doll because I’m a talentless midget who has a lazy eye is missing teeth resembles a shaved troll dol

I’m such a tease and you’re such a flirt Routines and schedules A drug that’ll kill you

Technology is killing us. We think it’s helping us but it’s killing us. Don’t ask me why because I don’t have the time or the attention span to complete that thought. Now let’s all hold hands and draw spider monkeys.

Look at that fat kid, in the audience. You want some pie you little fatty? I strongly dislike fat kids. Security, please remove him, that fat kid, over there, by the pies

The head of state Has called for me by name But I don’t have time for him It’s gonna be a glorious day I feel my luck could change.

Occasionally I’ll just pull out a rifle and shoot one of my audience members. So far there have been no complaints filed

It is difficult to make political art work

I have multiple personalities, but, being a fairly uncreative individual, they are all Thom Yorke

Most of my dancing is actually convulsions from having to listen to my own music.

Do you think Radiohead is my whole goddamn life? I also have a roadside cart where I sell apples and mincemeat pies

Isn’t it strange how someone can be both human and divine at the same time? I am referring, of course, to myself

I’m the Legendary Radio Head

Getting everything you want has nothing to do with anything

Build gaps in your life. Pauses. Proper pauses

Have you ever seen any member of radiohead aside from me in public? Do they interact or ‘lift’ objects? Holograms, all of them. I created them in 1991 using my massive brainpower. Even pitchforkmedia is a product of my brilliant imagination

The only thing worse than Radiohead fans is everything else except me.

If I were a bottle of wine, my name would be Thom Cork

If I weren’t in Radiohead I’d be working at a grocery store, I’d be that creepy guy who lives in an efficiency apartment and collects salted, cured meats

Far up above, aliens hover Making home movies for the folks back home Of all these weird creatures that lock up their spirits Drill holes in themselves and live for their secrets.

Well actually I’m not a man but a carrot. The band was eating salads one day and a carrot fell off of the salad bar onto a microphone and the band realized that they had just discovered something brilliant. Me

Are you feeling lucky? Cause I’m on a roll.