"I always write, but this time I kept writing. It's like cleaning your kitchen every day."

"Honesty is the best part of any art form. If you don't have that, your kidding yourself and your listener."

[About Brain Stew] "With that song I always think of how the guitar comes in. That 'dah dahn'."

"Mike wrote 'Longview' sitting on the floor, on LSD."

"Rock bands are such pussies, you know? I honestly think that people are looking for something that's more than just a piece of shit."

"Rock Music is about rebellion. It's supposed to be dangerous, and that's the side we choose. We're not looking to make everyone happy."

"Punk sometimes has this defeatist attitude where you can't expand. I look at a band like U2 that started out more or less as a punk band but kept expanding and wound up being one of the biggest bands in the world. And I think it's okay to want that.''

"I think that Pansy Division is the kind of band that saves people's lives," says Armstrong. "They're catchy, and they're really educational. They're honest about their sexuality and that saves lives."

"We've seen a lot of genres come and go since 'Dookie,'" he explains. "There has been hip-hop metal and the Warped tour generation and emo. We just went straight through it. We would play festivals over the years and we'd be lower on the bill than some bands who were the flavor of the moment. But we just always wanted one thing - to be the best band up there."

"Rock 'n' roll can be dangerous and fun at the same time."

"Sometimes I think we've become totally redundant because we're this big band now, we've made a lot of money - we're not punk rock any more. But then I think about it and just say, 'You can take us out of out a punk rock environment, but you can't take the punk rock out of us.' When we started it was a proven fact that punk could not get popular. So we never played punk rock to get famous."

"You know if journalists ask you again and again the same questions about the same bands, then you'll end up saying that you hate them – even if you don't – just because you're so fed up with being asked all those stupid questions. People just take it too seriously."

"Punk is not just the sound, the music. Punk is a life-style. There are a lot of bands around who claim to be punk and they only play the music, they have no clue what it's all about. It's a life-style I chose for myself. It's not about popularity and all that crap. When we started out as a band, we played punk rock, the music. [Then] we changed our sound, but we didn't change. We're just as much punk as we used to be. We got a lot of shit, and we're still getting it, for being signed with a major label. So what? We didn't start the band to cash in a lot of money. When we started out, punk was probably the most unpopular music around."

"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. You know even before we finished the album, before anybody ever heard just one track, some people had decided that it will suck. I don't give a shit about them. If they can't appreciate good music, it's their own fault."

"We're not into that whole ska scene. Operation Ivy is the only ultimate ska-punk band out there. They're the real thing. To listen to another band would be like... like... yeah like preferring an Oasis album over a Beatles album."

"I write better when I am stoned."