149 Pop Culture Quotes

Following is our list of pop culture quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about modern culture.

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Famous Pop Culture Quotes

Pop culture is not about depth. It's about marketing, supply and demand, consumerism. — Trevor Dunn

Pop culture is a reflection of social change, not a cause of social change. — John Podhoretz

Pop culture used to be like LSD – different, eye-opening and reasonably dangerous. It’s now like crack – isolating, wasteful and with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. — Peter Saville

Whether we're talking about race or gender or class, popular culture is where the pedagogy is, it's where the learning is. — Bell Hooks

The counterculture is always repackaged and made into a product. It's part of America. — Jim Jarmusch

Celebrity culture has gone crazy, and I think the reason is that real news is just not bearable, and it also seems impossible to change anything. — Chris Martin

Celebrity culture is something that pains me. — Susie Orbach

After pop art, graffiti is probably the biggest art movement in recent history to have such an impact on culture. — Jeffrey Deitch

Pop art is the American Dream, optimistic, generous, and naive! — Robert Indiana

Listen: our culture is saturated with irony whether we know it or not. — Barbara Kruger

Our culture will become like it was during the medieval times when there truly was a cultural elite. The rest of the people will just watch television, which will be their only frame of reference. — Jackie Kennedy

In this Western world that we have, culture risks being [only] a form of entertainment. — Shirin Neshat

The concept that an artist would be revered by popular culture is an immediate dismissal of his relevance as an artist. — Thomas Kinkade

The whole celebrity culture thing - I'm fascinated by, and repelled by, and yet I end up knowing about it. — Anderson Cooper

The culture we live in determines which behaviors are attractive to us. — James Clear

Short Pop Culture Quotes

  • Anything popular is populist, and populist is rarely a good adjective. — Brian Eno
  • Black culture is cool, but black issues sure aren't, huh? — Azealia Banks
  • Your culture sets your expectation for what is 'normal.' — James Clear
  • Over the epitaph of this generation it will say ENTERTAINED TO DEATH. — Paul Washer
  • Pop art is the inedible raised to the unspeakable. — Leonard Baskin
  • Popularity contest, dangerous, buy something at the peak of popularity — Howard Marks
  • Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. — Frank Zappa
  • Outside is the world; it's there. Pop Art looks out into the world. — Roy Lichtenstein
  • Brands and branding are the most significant gifts that commerce has ever made to popular culture. — Wally Olins
Pop culture quote You dont have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.
You dont have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.

American Pop Culture Quotes

May the Force be with you. - George Lucas

May the Force be with you. — George Lucas

I feel the need... the need for speed. — Tom Cruise

I had been an eyewitness to a truly historic moment in American pop culture. — Jean Shepherd

Pop culture quote Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let
Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses.

Marilyn Manson is a mockery of American pop culture. — Marilyn Manson

If you're starting to lose your faith in the general intelligence of the American populous, there's nothing like them mistaking pop culture for Van Gogh as a sign that people still read their history books and care about art. — Ben Feldman

I admire the abstract expressionists and pop artists so right now I'm referencing American '60s art and at the same time referencing Japanese manga culture. — Christian Marclay

Pop culture quote I think music in itself is healing. It's an explosive expression of humanity. It's something we are
I think music in itself is healing. It's an explosive expression of humanity. It's something we are all touched by. No matter what culture we're from, everyone loves music.

I think Indians will pick up on a lot of the direct commentary on Delhi, which Americans will obviously miss, while Americans might get more out of watching pop-culture play out in unusual ways in a foreign country. Who knows? — Karan Mahajan

The down side of Americans being obsessed with pop culture is that they kind of like it light. — Bill Griffith

I do think everything that happens in American pop culture sort of prescribes for England and does end up happening there six months later, maybe a year. — Emma Forrest

I grew up on American pop culture so everything that I fantasized about to get out of this sort of humdrum world of Bradford was about America. So when we decided to move there I was on the plane. — Aasif Mandvi

Modern Culture Quotes

The old Lakota was wise. He knew that man's heart, away from nature, becomes hard; he knew that lack of respect for growing, living things soon led to lack of respect for humans too. — Luther Standing Bear

One needs solitude and quiet to think. The cacophony of modern culture is designed to make that impossible. — Chris Hedges

Perhaps these ancient observatories like Stonehenge perennially impress modern people because modern people have no idea how the Sun, Moon, or stars move. We are too busy watching evening television to care what's going on in the sky. — Neil deGrasse Tyson

Pop culture quote Your culture is your brand
Your culture is your brand

The Church cannot be content to live in its stained-glass house and throw stones through the picture window of modern culture. — Robert McAfee Brown

The equilibrium you admire in me is an unstable one, difficult to maintain. My inner life was split early between the call of the Ancestors and the call of Europe, between the exigencies of black-African culture and those of modern life. — Leopold Sedar Senghor

Forty-hour workweeks are a relic of the Industrial Age. — Naval Ravikant

Pop culture quote Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural l
Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.

I really like the city of Vienna. I like its art, its music and its architecture. In short, I like the culture that Vienna represents. What really captures me is the period around 1900 - the time of Freud, Schnitzler and Klimt. This is the period in which the modern view of mind was born. — Eric Kandel

Knowledge was inherent in all things. The world was a library. - Luther Standing Bear

Knowledge was inherent in all things. The world was a library. — Luther Standing Bear

I love and admire the American culture and the American dream. I learnt so many things about the American shoe industry and marketing strategies. I caught the secrets of American casual wear, that is elegant and wearable, retro and modern, and mixed it with an Italian touch, luxurious and handmade. — Diego Della Valle

Superheroes fill a gap in the pop culture psyche, similar to the role of Greek mythology. There isn't really anything else that does the job in modern terms. For me, Batman is the one that can most clearly be taken seriously. — Christopher Nolan

The road goes on forever and the party never ends. — Robert Earl Keen

I’m always proud to be popular with the fans. I try to smile and do my best. If they like it, it’s even better. — Antoine Griezmann

The British brand is so popular particularly in the US that they put the union jack flag on top of beer bottles because it sells. — Liz Truss

Pop culture quote Translation is not a matter of words only: it is a matter of making intelligible a whole culture.
Translation is not a matter of words only: it is a matter of making intelligible a whole culture.

It is almost a truism that nothing kills a money-making opportunity faster than its widespread popularity. — Thomas Phelps

What the mass media offers is not popular art, but entertainment which is intended to be consumed like food, forgotten, and replaced by a new dish. — W. H. Auden

Riot – A popular entertainment given to the military by innocent bystanders. — Ambrose Bierce

Pop culture quote Culture eats strategy for breakfast.
Culture eats strategy for breakfast.

In the city a funeral is just an interruption of traffic; in the country it is a form of popular entertainment. — George Ade

Oh look, yet another Christmas TV special! How touching to have the meaning of Christmas brought to us by cola, fast food, and beer... Who'd have ever guessed that product consumption, popular entertainment, and spirituality would mix so harmoniously? — Bill Watterson

My esoteric doctrine, is that if you entertain any doubt, it is safest to take the unpopular side in the first instance. Transit from the unpopular, is easy... but from the popular to the unpopular is so steep and rugged that it is impossible to maintain it. — Lord Melbourne

My esoteric doctrine, is that if you entertain any doubt, it is safest to take the unpopular side in the first instance. Transit from the unpopular, is easy... but from the popular to the unpopular is so steep and rugged that it is impossible to maintain it. — William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne

Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. — Clark Gable

The test of a government is not how popular it is with the powerful and privileged few but how honestly and fairly it deals with the many who must depend on it. — Jimmy Carter

I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse. - Marlon Brando

I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse. — Marlon Brando

The standardization of world culture, with local popular or traditional forms driven out or dumbed down to make way for American television, American music, food, clothes and films, has been seen by many as the very heart of globalization. — Fredric Jameson

A few words of Hindi appear here or there, but it's all Urdu. I feel that if the popular culture, which is what Hindi films are, uses Urdu, it's not going to diminish. — Ismail Merchant

Reality TV is sleazy, it is manipulative. It is as momentary as anything in popular culture. — Morley Safer

I'm not saying Sonic Youth was a conceptual-art project for me, but in a way it was an extension of Warhol. Instead of making criticism about popular culture, as a lot of artists do, I worked within it to do something. — Kim Gordon

My older sister was at the cusp of new wave, and I had older brothers from my father's first marriage who were rock 'n' roll guys, so I was exposed to a lot of popular culture. — Paul Thomas Anderson

The Doors embodied—incarnated—a major upheaval in popular culture. Their music was of the times and it shaped the times. — Jac Holzman

If popular culture has taught us anything, it is that someday mankind must face and destroy the growing robot menace. — Daniel H. Wilson

Pop Music Quotes

Straight from the heart, I represent hip hop I be three albums deep, but I don't wanna go pop Too many candy rappers seem to be at the top Too much candy is no good, so now I'm closing the shop. — Phife Dawg

Pop music, disco music, and heavy metal music is about shutting out the tensions of life, putting it away. — Peter Tork

Latin music has many international influences - pop, rock, country, Brazilian sounds, and alternative styles. — Ednita Nazario

Rock and roll by its nature is sexual. So girls playing rock and roll is saying to the world, "We own our sexuality." I think that pop music is sort of about "you can do what you want to me" kind of energy, while rock and roll is "I'm going to do what I want to you" kind of energy. — Joan Jett

My favorite type of music to sing is a crossover between country and pop. - Lauren Alaina

My favorite type of music to sing is a crossover between country and pop. — Lauren Alaina

Pop changes week to week, month to month. But great music is like literature. — Ravi Shankar

That's the beautiful thing about the saxophone. It can peacefully coexist with just about anything - whether it's hip-hop, rap, rock music, pop, R&B or jazz, there's a place for the saxophone in all of those styles. — Dave Koz

Spin Me Round was number one all over the world, everywhere. It changed the face of pop music, no question. We took technology further than Trevor Horn. — Pete Waterman

In pop music, you say, 'You can do what you want to me.' Rock 'n' roll says, 'I'm gonna do what I want to you.' — Joan Jett

The first music I bought when I was nine or 10 was pop music from the '50s and '60s, like The Everly Bros., Elvis, Del Shannon, The Flamingos, The Platters, whatever I could get my hands on. And then some musical things, like Camelot, Singing in the Rain and Hair. — Will Oldham

Pop Art Quotes

Fashion wasn't what you wore someplace anymore; it was the whole reason for going. — Andy Warhol

When people are ready to, they change. They never do it before then, and sometimes they die before they get around to it. You can't make them change if they don't want to, just like when they do want to, you can't stop them. — Andy Warhol

The pop artists did images that anybody walking down Broadway could recognize in a split second — comics, picnic tables, men’s trousers, celebrities, shower curtains, refrigerators, Coke bottles. All the great modern things that the Abstract Expressionists tried not to notice at all. — Andy Warhol

Pop Art is industrial painting. I think the meaning of my work is that it is industrial, it's what all the world will soon become. Europe will be the same way, soon, it won't be American; it will be universal. — Roy Lichtenstein

Don't worry about mistakes. Making things out of mistakes, that's creativity. — Peter Max

People should fall in love with their eyes closed. — Andy Warhol

The idea of waiting for something makes it more exciting — Andy Warhol

When you stop wanting something, you get it. — Andy Warhol

I’m really afraid to feel happy because it never lasts — Andy Warhol

I've always enjoyed feeling a connection to the avant-garde, such as Dada and surrealism and pop art. The only thing the artist can do is be honest with themselves and make the art they want to make. That's what I've always done. — Jeff Koons

Celebrity Culture Quotes

Royalty is completely different than celebrity. Royalty has a magic all its own. — Philip Treacy

In a culture that celebrates youth, we largely overlook the vast repository of wisdom older people possess. — Dan Buettner

A culture of honor is celebrating who a person is without stumbling over who they're not. — Bill Johnson

There's one more thing I want to say. It's a touchy subject. Black beauty. Black sensuality. We live in a culture where the beauty of black people isn't always as celebrated as other types. I'd like to help change that if I can! — Jody Watley

Here in Australia, we’re fortunate enough to have one of the richest and oldest continuing cultures in the world. This is something we should all be proud of and celebrate. — Aboriginal proverbs

The key to community is the acceptance, in fact the celebration of our individual and cultural differences. It is also the key to world peace — M. Scott Peck

We are increasingly recognising and accepting, respecting and celebrating, our cultural diversity. — Julie Bishop

I think there ought to be some serious discussion by smart people, really smart people, about whether or not proliferation of things like The Smoking Gun and TMZ and YouTube and the whole celebrity culture is healthy. — Stephen King

I did not become successful in my work through embracing or engaging in celebrity culture. I never signed away my privacy in exchange for success. — Steve Coogan

We need to teach our kids, because there is such a celebrity culture at the moment, that however rich you are, however famous you are, however glamorous you are, everyone has to live by the same rules. — Nick Clegg

American Culture Quotes

Peace cannot exist without justice, justice cannot exist without fairness, fairness cannot exist without development, development cannot exist without democracy, democracy cannot exist without respect for the identity and worth of cultures and peoples. — Rigoberta Menchu

Violence is black children going to school for 12 years and receiving 6 years' worth of education. — Julian Bond

I say violence is necessary. Violence is a part of America's culture. It is as American as cherry pie. Americans taught the black people to be violent. We will use that violence to rid ourselves of oppression if necessary. We will be free, by any means necessary. — H. Rap Brown

You should always respect what you are and your culture because if your art is going to mean anything, that is where it comes from. — Romare Bearden

Ancestor worship, or filial piety so characteristic of Asian cultures, for example, does not really resonate with Americans who favor children, not grandparents. — Alan Dundes

Bullies: How the Left's Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences Americans — Ben Shapiro

I don't speak Japanese, I don't know anything about Japanese business or Japanese culture. Apart from sushi. But I can't exactly go up to him and say "Sushi!" out of the blue. It would be like going up to a top American businessman and saying, "T-bone steak! — Sophie Kinsella

I bring quadruple diversity to the Senate: I'm a woman; I'll be the first Asian woman ever to be elected to the U.S. Senate; I am an immigrant; I am a Buddhist. When I said this at one of my gatherings, they said, 'Yes, but are you gay?' and I said, 'Nobody's perfect.' — Mazie Hirono

The blues are the roots and the other musics are the fruits. It's better keeping the roots alive, because it means better fruits from now on. The blues are the roots of all American music. As long as American music survives, so will the blues. — Willie Dixon

Black women have been cultured to compare not connect. — Michaela Angela Davis

People Writing About Pop Culture

Name Quotes Likes
Read quotes by James Clear

James Clear
quotes on atomic habits, systems and goals

276 1
Read quotes by Trevor Dunn

Trevor Dunn
quotes on life, music and love

33 192
Read quotes by John Podhoretz

John Podhoretz
quotes on religion, education and war

83 257
Read quotes by Bell Hooks

Bell Hooks
quotes on love, community and education

347 4449
Read quotes by Jim Jarmusch

Jim Jarmusch
quotes on originality

128 594
Read quotes by Chris Martin

Chris Martin
quotes on love, music

110 1225

More Pop Culture Quotes

First and foremost, I'm a journalist. My business is the truth. Now, I happen to be other things, too - a pop-culture phenomenon, the most in-demand speaker on the campus lecture circuit, whatever. — Milo Yiannopoulos

Twentieth-century culture's disease is the inability to feel their reality. People cluster to TV, soap operas, movies, theater, pop idols and they have wild emotion over symbols. But in the reality of their own lives, they're emotionally dead. — Jim Morrison

I love Bane. I love the Joker. I love Batman. — Jake Paul

I think pop culture is the greatest subject matter out there - 'Other People's Lives,' as we wrote about on the last Duran Duran album. Most ideas for great songs come from real situations, something your friend said to you the night before, the girl that just left, or something traumatic in your life. — Nick Rhodes

Everything I know about pop culture I know from 'The Simpsons,' and they say the Grammys aren't very good. — Jonny Greenwood

Remember, we're madly in love, so it's all right to kiss me anytime you feel like it. — Suzanne Collins

Yeah, I don't deal with current events or pop culture, and I avoid politics like the plague. — Max Cannon

I'm absolutely obsessed with The Jesus And Mary Chain and Patti Smith, but I'm a massive pop fan. I love pop culture, It's a total reflection of the zeitgeist. — Siobhan Fahey

There is no comparing the brutality and cynicism of today's pop culture with that of forty years ago: from High Noon to Robocop is a long descent. — Charles Krauthammer

I hate recording all the shows for the week in one day, because I want to be able to mention current events and pop culture. If Madonna punches Britney in the face today, I want to reference that on 'Wine Library TV' tomorrow. Monday's episode is always the best, because it's hot off the press. — Gary Vaynerchuk

I'm definitely curious. I love pop culture. I'm glued to it. I can watch garbage TV, but then I can also watch great theater. — Michael Kors

Popular culture no longer craves archangels and new dawns. Pop culture traffics in vampires and deads of night. — James Wolcott

I think every artist subconsciously wants to evolve themselves. Sometimes they get stuck in ruts because of pop culture, peer pressure, stuff like that. But what excites me most is exploring my own musical insights and expanding upon them. — Steve Vai

I started with the book Boardwalk Empire and then immersed myself in the history of Atlantic City, World War I, the temperance movement, Prohibition, pop culture. I even read the news and magazines of the period just to soak in it. That was before I even started thinking of the story. — Terence Winter

It's up to us to take pop culture back and to express quality and dignity for both boys and girls. — Ashley Judd

You have to stay updated on trends, social things and pop culture, you need to stay with the times and keep evolving. — Corey Feldman

People constantly make pop-culture references. That's why it's called popular culture, because people are aware of it and reference it constantly. — Seth Rogen

The argument now that the spread of pop culture and consumer goods around the world represents the triumph of Western civilization trivializes Western culture. The essence of Western civilization is the Magna Carta, not the Magna Mac. The fact that non-Westerners may bite into the latter has no implications for their accepting the former. — Samuel P. Huntington

There are many more important things in life than fashion. But fashion, to me, is part of pop culture. And I'm an art collector. I'm obsessed with art and pop culture. And I say that there is fame, fashion, art, music and entertainment, including celebrity, that really moves the needle in society. — Tommy Hilfiger

There's still a lot of misogynist pop music out there, and I think that hearing something that's so explicitly feminist and so angry - when we're still growing up in a culture where girls and women are not supposed to be angry - is a real revelation for young women. — Kathleen Hanna

Robots are interesting because they exist as a real technology that you can really study - you can get a degree in robotics - and they also have all this pop-culture real estate that they take up in people's minds. — Daniel H. Wilson

I always think, quite frankly that pop culture is a lot more important than a lot of people realize. — Hugh Hefner

So much of our cultural representation of what an investigative journalist looks like, in movies and pop culture, is about this really testosterone-filled dude screaming, "Give me what you got!" I didn't see myself as someone who would be good at or comfortable with that. — Sarah Stillman

Pay no attention to pop culture, for it is what poisons our minds and divides our children. Materialism promotes negative values and egotism. Eliminate all of it. It is the plague of Big Business. — Suzy Kassem

I'm not actually pop culture or social media savvy. I really didn't know what Twitter was when I created an account. — Misha Collins

I wanted to tell a dream-come-true story about going from a closeted gay kid who loved pop culture to an out adult man making pop culture. I went from being told when I was 21 that I should never go on TV because of my crossed eyes to winding up being a 'Housewives' whisperer and talk-show host. — Andy Cohen

I like cinematic art that doesn't have to include violence as the main meat of emotion. Now, excellence in cinema is based on murder, guns. Tarantino bores me. Even though he is very appealing and very facile about putting elements of pop culture into his work. But it kinds of dates it, right? — Jeff Buckley

I love how pop culture shapes a generation. The trends, fashion and events all play a key part in how we live our present lives, and will mark how we will be remembered in the future. — Connor Franta

Pop culture has entered into a nostalgic malaise. Online culture is dominated by trivial mashups of the culture that existed before the onset of mashups, and by fandom responding to the dwindling outposts of centralized mass media. It is a culture of reaction without action. — Jaron Lanier

In pop culture news, Lady Gaga got married. And yes, she was wearing white meat. — David Letterman

If you write chick lit, and if you're a New Yorker, and if your book becomes the topic of pop-culture fascination, the paper might make dismissive and ignorant mention of your book. If you write romance, forget about it. You'll be lucky if they spell your name right on the bestseller list. — Jennifer Weiner

I always wanted to create a site that was sports and pop culture. 30 for 30 had a big impact because I loved how that was about finding, empowering and working with these incredible directors, and I thought the same thing could work for writers. — Bill Simmons

Present-day American society-whether through pop culture, religion, or institutions-conflates sexuality and morality constantly. Idolizing virginity as a stand-in for women’s morality means that nothing else matters-not what we accomplish, not what we think, not what we care about and work for. Just if/how/whom we have sex with. That’s all. — Jessica Valenti

All of the agreed-upon pariahs throughout pop-culture history put their identities into the thing we decry. And yet we derive our own identities from the act of hating. We connect on the things we are disappointed in. Some may argue that nothing in history gathers a crowd like complaining about Lady Gaga's meat dress. — Patrick Stump

Pop culture, it's crazy. There's all this violence in video games. In 'Call of Duty,' people are literally just blowing other people up. Hey, let's protect your country from your couch while eating your sandwich. — Natasha Leggero

Well, we look for sources of inspiration in pop culture in general. It's very important for us that, when it comes to storytelling, we don't look into other video games. We'd rather look into other mediums - movies, television series and books - for sources of inspiration. — Sam Lake

There are a lot of reasons to be hated in pop culture, and being a straight white male is one of them. In fact, I almost hate me — John Rzeznik

We're into this barrage of pop culture - you know, TV, movies, the Internet. We become creatures that we've made up, made of certain different flotsam from pop culture and certain different personas that are in style. — Gillian Flynn

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