Michael Diamond > Quotes

“Kids … when someone’s making decisions for you, you can bet that they’ve also decided to take what’s yours.”
― Michael Diamond, Beastie Boys Book

“Rap, in all its far-reaching ambition, was now It. Our hardcore punk world simply couldn’t compete anymore. How much louder and faster and rulier could bands get? So much of hardcore is about limits—shorter, simpler, more speed, more volume—whereas breakbeats and hip hop are all about the limitless—limitless possibilities, limitless imagination. Punk rock had changed our lives, but hardcore had served its purpose. Now all we wanted was to be our own version of the Treacherous Three.

No turning back.”
― Michael Diamond, Beastie Boys Book

“For certain people, you gotta remind them that you have a way better record collection than they do. And this tape I’m giving you now will show and prove it. (Not that it’s a competition…but it always is.)”
― Michael Diamond, Beastie Boys Book

“I like to think that while ADROCK was shouting about gratitude in the desert, his future wife, Kathleen Hanna, was singing "Suck My Left One" in a small club many miles away. And then their vocal particles travelled across land and sea until it became a giant love cloud ready to rain awesomeness on them for years to come." - Amy Poehler”
― Michael Diamond, Beastie Boys Buch

“I first met Serch at Payday, a really good once-a-week night club started by these guys Patrick Moxey and Beaver, the latter of whom I know now from the rare-wine world. (Did I just write that sentence? You're goddamn right I did.)”
― Michael Diamond, Beastie Boys Book

“We were also alternately inspired by and jealous of P.E.’s “It Takes a Nation of Millions,” which Yauch played on the boomin’ system in his Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham D’elegance, because it made us question whether what we were making was even worthwhile. “Damn, they did it! We will never make anything this good.”
― Michael Diamond, Beastie Boys Book