Lydia Lee’s Profile

"As for drugs, I've always known I have an obsessive personality, and if I started doing drugs, I wouldn't be able to control myself. Besides, I've never had a problem "letting myself go." I was always a crazy kid, and at first the people I knew who partied would say, "Snider, we want to see what you're like high." Then after spending a bit more time with me, they would say "On second thought, we don't."

Am I anti-drugs-and-alcohol? Not really. I'm just anti-asshole. If you can party and remain who you are or become a looser, more fun version of who you are, God bless you. But if when you party, you become some shape-shifting, obnoxious asshole who doesn't know when to quit...you, I can live without."

"People often ask me what I think of current music, and for the past twenty-five years or so I've said the same thing: "Not enough middle finger." Since my heyday, I've liked lots of contemporary heavy music. I even liked grunge--the hair-metal slayer--but in the 1990s and 2000s--and even still today--there's just too much whining and complaining about how life sucks, and not enough middle finger."

"Civilian life has rolled on virtually uninterrupted. If you're not in a military family, you've barely even felt it. The country has perfected the art of frictionless war. America's war thrums away like Muzak in the background here in the United States, kind of annoying when you tune in, but easy enough to tune out. Three years? Five? Ten? What's the difference? And where are we fighting, anyway? We're shooting missiles into Pakistan all the time. Does that count? Are we allowed to know?"