I have terrible hearing trouble. I have unwittingly helped to invent and refine a type of music that makes its principal proponents deaf. – Pete Townshend

I felt that the elegance of pop music was that it was reflective: we were holding up a mirror to our audience and reflecting them philosophically and spiritually, rather than just reflecting society or something called rock and roll. – Pete Townshend

The problem for me, still today, is that I write purely with one dramatic structure and that is the rite of passage. Im not really skilled in any other. Rock and roll itself can be described as music to accompany the rite of passage. – Pete Townshend