Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I'm always active in trying to educate people when it comes to eating animal products, testing on animals, and the health benefits of being vegan, although I'm probably not the best person to be talking about the latter at the moment.
A guitar is a piece of wood, and if this piece is resonating in a period of 40 or 60 years, it kind of gets to know what it is after awhile... the reason violinists play violins that are hundreds of years old. The wood learns to sing.
I couldn't stand to be separated with my wife for months. It became quickly apparent to me that I needed to find a balance between my absolute work obsession and a private life that we could share without my disappearing all the time.
That's the shock: All cliches are true. The years really do speed by. Life really is as short as they tell you it is. And there really is a God - so do I buy that one? If all the other cliches are true... Hell, don't pose me that one.
I'm in awe of the universe, but I don't necessarily believe there's an intelligence or agent behind it. I do have a passion for the visual in religious rituals, though, even though they may be completely empty and bereft of substance.
Sometimes the European and North American public like some things to be exotic and kept at arm's length. They don't want sometimes to know that foreign artists are doing something that's at least as relevant as what's being done here.
The first thing you learn about the music business is that it changes very quickly. You come into it at a certain point and you think you have a handle on it... And then, three years later, the whole thing has been turned upside-down.
I sometimes suffer from insomnia and one of the first times it ever happened I was like, "I don't know what to do with myself," so I started writing a song and by morning it was finished. It was about how I couldn't sleep... I was 14.
The worst thing is always thinking of titles for records, with some reason behind them, and she just came out with the word, which she thought was a good word, a hard word, and since then we've sort of attached loads of meaning to it.
I did play a lot of fingerstyle when I first started playing. I could never really find the right combination of flatpick or fingerpick, so playing fingerstyle is really the easiest way - though it's quite strenuous on the fingertips.
I just practice. I do six hours of practice everyday. I set to teach myself the trumpet they all said I would never play. I put the organ in my music, like if you listen to my work Day By Day, which got me my second Grammy nomination.
It's very rare - and it does happen on occasion - where I'll take a piece of lyric and I'll just sit down and purposefully craft that melody around that lyric because I think the lyric is the wellspring for the song, without question.
I'd rather stay home and watch the tube than go out and make myself into a spectacle. I'm not uncomfortable with a social life, but it doesn't appeal to me. It doesn't seem to accomplish anything - it just leaves one wanting for more.
The best thing anyone can give to humanity is God consciousness. Then you can really give them something. But first you have to concentrate on your own spiritual advancement; so in a sense we have to become selfish to become selfless.
Maybe some folks are alcoholics and others are just voluntary drunks. Maybe some folks drink due to body chemistry and others due to their lazy characters. Maybe some have drinking problems, while others have problems enough to drink.
If you chase the art, you really can't fail because you'll always be able to look at yourself in the mirror. And that's not about making angry decisions, either, it's about always doing the right thing for you, your fans and your art.
The more people that learn about you, even if you're an underdog, then you can come under fire a lot and the more attention you get and the more threatening or dangerous you appear to people. And the more people try to knock you down.
Quite often people will get an animal which is probably not a good idea for them to have. They get it out of enthusiasm, there is a genuine interest, but sometimes they're not exactly prepared for what they're getting themselves into.
Walt Disney got away with portraying me in the light that they were portraying me in. I have always been a fighter, so... But I have no regrets, man. It's just like God brought me through the drugs, I know he'll bring me through this.
A lot of comic conventions go way beyond comic books and include other parts of pop culture, like celebrities and science fiction and movies and books. So I go to them either as a celebrity, or as a fan, because I'm a big sci-fi geek.
I read The Onion, and I've read a lot of interviews that are very direct, often with people who are never direct. Which is interesting. But somehow the A.V.Club part of The Onion, I don't think is telegraphed into the popular culture.
John Berger once defined music by saying that it began as a howl, became a prayer, then a lament, and still contains the elements of all three. I think that's pretty wise. That's about the only way I know how to explain what music is.
It's pretty hard when you are Caesar and everyone is saying how wonderful you are and they are giving you all the goodies and the girls, it's pretty hard to break out of that, to say 'Well, I don't want to be king, I want to be real.'
I enjoyed it when football crowds in the early days would sing 'All together now' - that was another one. I was also pleased when the movement in America took up 'Give peace a chance' because I had written it with that in mind really.
Before many black singers were still labouring under that problem of God; it was often 'God will save us'. But right through the blacks were singing directly and immediately about their pain and also about sex, which is why I like it.
I don't really know what playing is. There's a way to do it correctly, but it eludes me. I think getting in front of an audience is definitely a good way to focus in on the real dimension of the activity, the most important dimension.
One of the things about live music that's so incredibly important and can't be replaced and automated is the common focus of a room full of people having that human contact and being immersed in the sensory overload of a rock concert.
I might have been through some changes, but changing the way I look wasn't one of the major ones. To be honest. I'm sick of the whole subject of my hair. I mean, are you just sitting there looking at my hair, or are you looking at me?
Sometimes I go out disguised, but people still recognize me, so I find there is no point in even trying. It would be nice to get away from it, from time to time, but the fact is, there is no place on earth where I can go unrecognized.
If you dont tour, you cannot expect to sell a huge numbers of your albums either. It was both a business - and an economical decision and we wanted to play anyway. We just wanted to get out for the tour when it was safe enough for us.
You have to look at the fundamental raison d'être of the business - what is it doing? What's the nature of the business and what are its prospects for success? What are its prospects to break even and then return the sustained profit?
The Kyle who made 'Smyle' honestly has a little more conflict in his life. He has a little more weight on his shoulders. He feels like he has to make an album about something. It's a Kyle with duty, with a plan, with a responsibility.
We kind of reached this point in life where we don't really want to put out anything just to put something out. We really don't want it to be like, 'Two years are up. You've had your break; now do another record and get it out there.'
Johnny Depp is like a brother to me. We have matching tattoos on our backs - Charles Baudelaire, the flowers of evil, this giant skeleton thing. It's kind of a secret. People say to us, 'Why did you get that?' And we say, 'No reason.'
Wealth, in terms of dollars and so forth, could be counted up, because dollars were finite. It doesn't make any difference how many dollars you have-at a certain point you only have dollars. You start with finite, you end with finite.
I didn't think of myself as a lead player, especially when we did live shows, because me and Keith used to switch around all the time. He'd take a lead, I'd play rhythm. Sometimes even within one song. It wasn't strict and regimented.
We came from the '60s era, when we started and made so many hits. The song value from the '60s was so darn good, you've got The Beatles, The Beach Boys, all of Motown, and plenty of other people, too... amazing records, amazing songs.
The problem now with changes in the music industry is that there's almost no point in making records anymore. The only thing really is to tour, and then you're revisiting history. Maybe it's better to leave it, if you see what I mean.
I love the way my tattoos look. I especially love Japanese-style tattoos and being completely sleeved by them, so it's not just these little individual and unrelated pieces, but everything's working together to create a larger design.
Yet I have a clever touch and pander to your vices. While looking on in exultation. And so I play my game, with the exuberance of experience, the strange and terribly subtle final aims of my Asiatic Blood that remain a mystery to you.
I never, ever wanted to be the Rolling Stones. Bless their hearts, but I don't necessarily want to go on doing the same old thing for the next 10, 20 years... I could see how easy it is to get into that rut, the whole touring mindset.
I've got a fierce passion for politics but I can't stand the smarmy, hypocritical upper-middle-class dictator nation that prevails and has always prevailed in this country. I'm up for petrol bombers, mate, and fighting in the streets.
The problem for me, still today, is that I write purely with one dramatic structure and that is the rite of passage. I'm not really skilled in any other. Rock and roll itself can be described as music to accompany the rite of passage.
In the past members of my family on both my mother's and father's side have fought in the war, in the first and second World Wars. Unfortunately, they're dead and I wasn't able to speak to them, but that was in our family history too.
I've got my whole life. There's a lifetime of experience, a lifetime of experiencing the road and the music and different players. It makes me a richer human being. I have a greater source of information to tap into, a wealth of life.
The art of moviemaking seems to get thrown away. The cinematography is gone, and the look of everything becomes of little importance. You lose the memorable images; everything looks like it's been shot at night with a security camera.
I can picture certain things in my mind, while writing the script, but then I can also tell that everyone else might be a little confused about what it's supposed to look like at the end of the day. But it all works out. I find a way.
When punk came along, I found my generation's music. I grew up listening to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd, 'cause that was what got played in the house. But when I first saw the Stranglers, I thought, 'This is it.'
I think the Internet is an awful lot like FM radio was when it broke out in the late '60s. It's kind of a wild and wily kind of format. They could play 20 songs in a row that had the word 'blue' in them, or whatever they wanted to do.
Freddie will have been dead for 20 years in November. I was staggered because it doesn't seem possible that all that time has passed and I still miss him. He was my best friend, my best man. We shared so much and I owe so much to him.