"When we started, inflated and elongated names were the order of the day. I wanted to explain to people that it wasn't necessary to have long names, dress in black and be po-faced. Our task was to choose the most ordinary of names and yet produce something of artistic merit."
–Nov. 1983

"I think of our music as a really passionate human cry. The main thing is to convince people that there's another train of thought that they can open up. I think people are generally afraid of emotionalism, and I want to change that."
–Nov. 1983

"People are dedicated to us because we deserve it. We try."
–Nov. 1983

"The Smiths is a very stray kind of name, very timeless."
–May 1983

"We're out to prove that you don't need dazzling technology to produce music. There's a horrendous myth in modern music that you need the most complex equipment and the most far-reaching ideas, otherwise you don't rate. We've got back to a very traditionalist structure with the four-piece setup which has been severely underrated in the past couple of years."
–May 1983

"Control of artwork, etc., is of maximum importance. This is our product; we haven't come this far for some stranger to step in. We're not hollow musicians."
–May 1983

"What is important is that we have a conviction that is quite rare. We write songs that have good lyrics and everything we do and say, we mean."
–Sept. 1983

"I wouldn't want the Smiths to be considered to be in any particular category."
–Sept. 1983

"People cannot trivialise The Smiths and people cannot trivialise anything we do."
–Sept. 1983

"For the first time in a too long a time, this is real music played by real people."
–March 1984

"We never listen to anyone else. I think the only thing to do with advice is ignore it, because people will never understand the real you."
–Dec. 1984

The message of The Smiths: "That people should discard any notions of in-ness or hip-ness or cool-ness, and simply relax and be themselves, whatever that may be. Ninety per cent of immediate daily anxieties are futile."
–1984

"The image The Smiths provokes is so strong. It does provoke absolute adoration or murderous hatred. There are people out there, I know, who would want to disembowel me - just as there are people who would race towards me and smother me with kisses."
–1984

"The music industry absolutely detests The Smiths."
–March 1985

"To be honest, we are very angry. We are angry about the music industry. We are angry about pop music."
–March 1985

"The Smiths have been successful without any help from a living soul anywhere on this planet."
–June 1985

"For a manager-less group like us to survive is miraculous."
–June 1985

"What we're ultimately hoping to do is to make them laugh and cry at the same time."
–Sept. 1987

"One of The Smiths' skills has been to take subjects which people might lazily presume are dark and morbid, and make them interesting, or turn them into the subjects of interesting songs."
–Sept. 1987