Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Loss either teaches you to persist in the face of suffering, or hardens you into a bitter cynic. Sometimes, it does a little of both.
Too many people try to please their parents. My parents were Republicans, which is too bad, but they allowed me to be who I wanted to be.
I've enjoyed the accommodations offered by police departments from Florida to Hawaii. Any time I saw a badge, something in me would snap.
You can't make people change, but the organizers of WorldFest hope that people consider being vegetarian for both moral and health reasons
You can't make people change, but the organizers of WorldFest hope that people consider being vegetarian for both moral and health reasons.
I left rock and roll professionally at about 49. That's too long as far as I'm concerned. Some people can do it; it depends on what you were.
I'm not very good at multi-tasking. Most people aren't, but they think they are. The mind is really better when you're really focused on one thing.
I was appalled that the San Francisco ethic didn't mushroom and envelope the whole world into this loving community of acid freaks. I was very naive.
The main point for me is moral; animals are sentient beings. I know for some this is a hard argument to accept, but we're not built to eat a lot of meat.
Jim Morrison was a well-built boy, larger than average, and young enough to maintain the engorged silent connection right through the residue of chemicals.
In Germany I ingested the entire contents of the hotel mini-bar before a show and stuck my fingers in this guy's nostrils because I thought they would fit.
If you were to say to me that I couldn't paint, I would write. If I couldn't write, I would be a set designer. As long as I'm creating something, I'm happy.
My solo albums were each like a half-finished puzzle; they represented only the beginning of a full picture. Simply put, they were inadequate and incomplete.
Man is the only animal that knows he's going to die, so we invent a heaven to keep from going crazy. Most people are hypnotized by organized religion from childhood.
It's really a drag to sit around when you're old, and think, 'Ah, gee, I never went to France.' Go to France. Life is very short; you've got to pack it all in there.
I think it jumps generations. You get a screwball in one, and then the next one is straight, then you get a screwball. My grandmother was goofy, my mother was straight.
Woodstock is well known because this country is so hyped on amount. It was big. Half a million people doesn't necessarily mean something is good. It just means it's big.
I'm 5 feet 7 but my legs weren't long enough to be a big-time model. From the knees up, everything is long but from ankle to knee, if I was in proportion, I'd be 5 feet 9.
I fall down all the time because I'm such a klutz, but I have never broken a bone, and I don't eat milk or cheese ever. I like tofu cheese and soymilk in my coffee and cereal.
I don't miss anything about the 1960s, not really. I did it. It's like asking, 'Do you miss the fourth grade?' I loved the fourth grade when I was in it, but I don't want to do it again.
Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Stephen Colbert. Those are the guys I look at who are telling me pretty much the truth. And they throw humor into it which makes it much more interesting to listen to.
It takes a little work to be a vegan, but now it's really possible to have tasty stuff and it's better for you. I say the best test is go as far as you can and see how you feel. Personally, I feel great.
Woodstock - I didn't see anybody play, except when I was standing backstage waiting to go on, because it was so muddy. And the weather was so horrible, you literally couldn't get there except by helicopter.
I was a floor model at I. Magnin. I'm 5 feet 7, but my legs weren't long enough to be a big-time model. From the knees up, everything is long, but from ankle to knee, if I was in proportion, I'd be 5 feet 9.
Through your life, most people peel away the junk that's not useful, that's superfluous. You are determined to peel that away. I do one thing at a time. One man at a time. One car. One house. One child. One job.
I don't imagine my parents are too excited about my kind of life. The surrounding weirdness bothers them. Still, I think they're pretty good. Their lives are based on what their friends think, just like ours are.
In school, I learned about artists and how they were free to express themselves. I was allergic to conformity, and the lifestyle attracted me. I wanted to express myself in a way that slammed people up against the wall.
It's a bit difficult to get hippies organized into anything, but I think if they get annoyed enough with the stuff that's going down, they're capable of showing up. So anything they consider important, they'll be there.
When I was between the ages of five and nine, the soldiers of the Second World War wanted to have Betty Grable, but I wanted to be Betty Grable. She was the epitome of an alluring woman; she had it all as far as I was concerned.
My parents were very open about what kind of talent I had. They never pushed me to become an accountant because they knew that would be just absolutely ridiculous. So they were encouraging in what I am able to do with some success.
You start out performing because it's fun, then you learn more things and you want to do more than go "Na-na-na-na" on a stage. The production end is interesting, writing is interesting, and you learn to coordinate all these things.
'White Rabbit' was mostly done in about two days, the music in about half an hour. The music is a 'Bolero' rip-off and the lyrics a rearrangement of 'Alice in Wonderland.' You take two spectacular hits and throw them together, and it's hard to miss.
People say Altamont was the end of the 60s. It was unfortunate, but at the time we didnt think of it as signaling anything. The fact that nobody got killed at Woodstock is amazing because that was half a million people. We only had 300,000 at Altamont.
One good thing about television is that you have a lot of people with money who have real good cameras going around to all these countries. You haven't been there? Great. Turn on The History Channel or The Discovery Channel. So, we're lucky in that way.
People say Altamont was the 'end of the '60s.' It was unfortunate, but at the time we didn't think of it as signaling anything. The fact that nobody got killed at Woodstock is amazing because that was half a million people. We only had 300,000 at Altamont.
Starship was a whole different thing. It was pop rock. It made more money and had more hit songs than Airplane. There was no cultural or social ethic behind it. For me, it was like selling out. I was the only one selling out. The rest enjoyed doing what they were doing.
There is an attitude that we should be able to have everything. No, you shouldn't be able to have anything. I'd like a helicopter, but I can't afford a helicopter, so I don't buy one. People are buying stuff they can't afford on credit. I bought my Ford hybrid with cash.
You either evolve or you don't. I don't like old people on a rock n' roll stage. I think they look pathetic, me included. And the fact that I represent an era means I can't just go out there and do all new stuff. They would all say, 'Sing 'White Rabbit,' and I'd say no? That's rude.
You either evolve or you don't. I don't like old people on a rock n' roll stage. I think they look pathetic, me included. And the fact that I represent an era means I can't just go out there and do all new stuff. They would all say, 'Sing 'White Rabbit,'' and I'd say no? That's rude.
Applause is interesting, but I'm a monster with or without it. Something is either well written or it isn't. 'White Rabbit' is not well written, and no amount of applause or royalties can convince me it is. I could have done a better job with those lyrics. They didn't say what I wanted.
The way I paint is similar to rock in that you don't stand around and say, 'Gee, what are they talking about?' Rock is simple, blunt, colorful. Same with my paintings. You don't stand back and wonder what it is. That's Jim Morrison, that's a panda, that's a scene on the West Coast. It's not abstract.
'Feminist comedy,' practically an oxymoron, had a couple of good years after WWII. Chalk it up to the forced female autonomy that occurred during wartime, when Rosie the Riveter went to work in the factories, constructing the Allies' war machines while taking charge of the finances, the home, and the children.
People ask me why I don't paint oils. It takes too long. Cleaning brushes in linseed oil, and it takes six months to really dry, and all this. I don't have that kind of time. I work with acrylic. It's water based. You can clean it under water. If you spill it on yourself, you just throw it in the washing machine.
The word 'success' - who's defining it? It's about whether or not it makes me feel good. Four billion people don't have to see or hear it. If I've enjoyed the process of creation and I'm at peace, then what happens next is just entertainment. If mass appeal were actually something, Marilyn Monroe wouldn't be dead.
My deal is that I pay more attention to whatever job I have than the relationships I have. Now, if I had considered my job to be a wife and mother, then I would have been pretty good at it. But I didn't consider it a job. I thought it was like brushing your teeth - it's not fun, it's just something you do to keep your teeth from falling out.
With all due respect to Mick Jagger, who is one of my idols, I think it's a mistake to leap around and sing at 53. When I started, there weren't any women I looked up to. It was Mick. I never saw anybody go on a stage and have that tongue-in-cheek attitude. It was all straight, including the Beatles. I love his attitude, hands on hips and lips out.
Some of the most interesting and happiest kids I've seen have lived with a lot of different adults, because a kid can go up to one guy and wear him out. And as soon as the adult gets tired, there are five other guys, or five other chicks to go and wear out, and the kid gets to be very bright - and tolerant, you know, with that many kinds of people around.
Ideal government would be a very boring job - it would be a matter of organizing a lot of utilities and keeping the wires together and the power plant and all that kind of stuff. It's not a matter of telling people how to live, it's a matter of making it pleasant for them to live. Government should be in the position of distributing food, stuff like that.
It might be a good idea to have government totally by the people - that each person takes four or five hours of the week doing some kind of government job - in other words, along with what you do you also help maintain the government so no one person has total control - I might go down to an office for four hours and do whatever I'm capable of doing - writing out receipts for food distribution in a certain area - but it's all actually a monstrous secretarial job and that's all I think it should be.