I think love is sort of a con you play on yourself. I think the whole conception of love is something the previous generation invents to justify having created you. You know I think the real reason children are born is because parents are so bored they have children to amuse themselves. They're so bored they don't have anything else to do so they have a child because that will keep them busy for a while. Then to justify to the kid the reason he exists they tell him there's such a thing as love and that's where you come from because me and your daddy or me and your mommy were in love and that's why you exist. When actually it was because they were bored out of their minds.

They also built the club's first stage. [citation needed] Hell's best known songs with the Voidoids were "Blank Generation" "Love Comes in Spurts" "The Kid With the Replaceable Head" and "Time". After one show Walter Lure joined The Heartbreakers as a second guitarist.

Since the late 1980s Hell has devoted himself primarily to writing publishing two novels and several other books. Malcolm McLaren manager of the Sex Pistols has credited Hell as a source of inspiration for the Sex Pistols' look and attitude as well as the safety-pin and graphics accessorized clothing that McLaren sold in his London shop Sex. Hell was in several important early punk bands including Neon Boys Television and The Heartbreakers after which he formed Richard Hell & The Voidoids.