John Peel

I used to go and see Genesis, and after about three minutes I'd think, "Oh, I wish this would stop!".

Everything changed when I heard [Elvis Presley]. Where there had been nothing, there was suddenly something.

When I was younger I watched a lot of cartoons, mostly of seafaring folk.

I gave up cycling after being victim of a hit-and-run en route from Broadcasting House to my mum's house in Notting Hill. It involved Darth Vader, men from the Middle East and bodily fluids--all of them mine. Show less «

[on the music of the late 1960s] My favorite LP of that era, really, was and remains Country Joe's [Country Joe and the Fish] "Electric Music For The Mind And Body", and I couldn't understand why it wasn't in the charts, 'cos everybody I knew had a copy of it. But, of course, it was actually that everybody who had a copy of it was somebody that I knew. Show less «

I never make stupid mistakes - only very, very clever ones.

The one distinguishing feature about early-'70s progressive rock was that it didn't progress.

["Why don't you?" Show] My reaction as a kid... to seeing a kid on TV... was to hate that kid.

[on his role as an influential DJ] People say there are certain bands and obviously you advance them a little bit and bring them to a slightly wider audience than they previously had, but at the same time there are numbers of bands whose records I've stoutly resisted playing and I've refused to have in session like U2 and The Police and Dire Straits, all of whom applied for sessions at one time or another, all of whom were turned down by myself and producer John Walters, quite rightly so I think, so if ever I started to think of myself as some sort of kingmaker, I can reflect back on those bands who have become stupendously successful... and Bruce Springsteen. When his earlier records arrived, I thought they were rubbish and no-one else could understand why I felt like this, I thought they were dreadful, I still think they're dreadful as a matter-of-fact and so it's really quite a good thing I think for me to turn against you because it's a guarantee of stupendous success. Show less «

[on "Sinful" by Pete Wylie] If that doesn't get to number one I'm going to come and break wind in your kitchen.