Tony Wilson

Richard Branson once said: 'Tony's very good at selling bands and he's very good at making television programmes. But he'll never be great at either, until he decides which one he wants to do.' I entirely accept that. That doesn't matter to me very much. I like the irony of the two lives.

In the '80s, we played the Roxy and the Whiskey with our bands.

You don't know reality until someone makes a fiction of it. Reality needs the completion of fiction.

I have this problem that I just like to get a reaction from people.

I don't mind the fact that people hate me. Nobody likes anyone who's been on the telly as long as I have.

Even though the hero of emo is Morrissey, the great song of emo is 'Love Will Tear Us Apart.' An emo soundtrack would introduce Joy Division's music to a whole new generation.

I hate English kids rapping - complete crap.

I had the virtue of wanting to hang out with people who were more talented than me. I can't write songs, I can't perform, I can't design clubs, but I was an enthusiast. My gift was that I said yes to everybody.

My public image is none of my business.

It's hard to describe how bloody awful music was, how desperately bad it was, how our 1960s heroes had become boring and useless. Not only were they bad - they were badly dressed.

People shouting abuse has happened for a very long time, and I find it kind of amusing and irrelevant.

I'm going to be the next David Frost.

I am very much an only child, meaning I am self-reliant, egocentric, sociable. I had my mother, father, and an uncle who lived with us, all doting on me.

The special relationship between the region and a regional celebrity means that people feel that they have a special investment in you.

There is no celebrity quite as powerful as the local, homegrown celebrity.

I've been a minor celebrity since I was 23 years old.

I'm a minor player in my own life story.

I am not a piece of hash. I'm in charge of Factory Records. I think.

Maybe the worst thing is not caring what people think. That came from my mother. She was the biggest influence on my life.

You either make money, or you make history.

Factory Records would not have existed and my life would not have been what it was without Joy Division.

Every band needs it's own special chemistry. And Bez was a very good chemist.

Energy, energy? Energy is, is, it's nothing more than a lot of new age hokum masquerading as religion.

Jazz is the last refuge of the untalented. Jazz musicians enjoy themselves more than anyone listening to them does.

We had a heroic attitude to artistic freedom, and we thought normal contracts were a bit vulgar - somehow not punk. But that was the whole point - we weren't a regular record label.