Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I think a lot of self-importance is a product of fear. And fear, living in sort of an un-self-examined fear-based life, tends to lead to narcissism and self-importance.
It's heartbreaking that so many hundreds of millions of people around the world are desperate for the right to vote, but here in America people stay home on election day.
There's nothing in the actual Bible that limits a Christian in their appreciation of or interest in science. Anti-science is purely a function of ignorant fundamentalism.
There's a fairly extensive network of musicians on tour who are all trying to stay sober, and we generally reach out to each other and offer support when and where we can.
I love the fact that no one's ever bought my record because they were enamoured of the way I look. Maybe one person. There must be someone out there with compromised taste.
Biologically we’re all the same. We all get sad, we all get happy, and we all die. Anyone who pretends that that’s not the case is either a sociopath or utterly delusional.
An artist in 2014 who is thinking about album sales is either sadly deluded or has to make so many commercial compromises that it sort of takes the joy out of making music.
There is a long and interesting tradition of really marginal left-field music that becomes commercially successful. And I will, for a brief minute, fit into that tradition.
If I found myself married with children and had tons of puppies and a fun place to live, I imagine I'd be happier, but I kind of like being a little bit isolated and lonely.
A lot of people have realized that a good spiritual practice and a good meditation practice have real benefit. It’s not just something nice to do to make the universe happy.
Here was long period on my life when I was very disappointed by the fact I wasn't gay. Because I grew up going to gay clubs, living in New York and LA, both very gay cities.
I was raised with this idea that we're supposed to be tolerant of other people's opinions, but then what happens if other people's opinions are racist and hateful and wrong?
It just seems like musicians want to sell a few records and put out a perfume line, and I think it's so sad that there are so many musicians who don't want to change the world.
One problem with a lot of musicians is that they remove themselves in a studio and make a record and assume people are going to pay attention to it just because they've made it.
Sit down, close your eyes, and think about dogs for ten minutes. On a very clear, physiological, and neurochemical level, your body is changed by these really positive thoughts.
The reason I didn't like cocaine is it made me do stupid things, have stupid conversations, and stay awake until 11 o'clock in the morning unable to think, read, sleep or speak.
The young have to kill the old. The young, if they want to achieve their own platform, have to diminish the reputations of the ones that have gone before. That's how life works.
I saw people around me who were falling deeper and deeper into alcoholism and substance abuse. It's seductive because alcohol is amazing and drugs are amazing, they work so well.
When I was fifteen years old, the only distinction in music my friends and I made was [that] there's music made by people with short hair and music made by people with long hair.
People have always been resistant to change. If you go back to the 17th, 18th century, playing guitar was frowned upon. When rock n' roll first started, no one took it seriously.
The moment somebody becomes famous, 15 years gets knocked off their life. They're gonna get divorced a few times, they're gonna be addicted to things, they're gonna be in therapy.
I feel like the vast majority of the world's problems would disappear if suddenly everyone on the planet were relatively self-aware and capable of honest self-love and compassion.
I don't think too much about how it might exist in the world in a commercial sense - I more just try and focus on making music that I love and trying to put it out into the world.
It’s perfectly natural for me to sit down and talk about meditating and spiritual practice with my friends. But then I realize, how would it sound to a drunk cynical guy in London?
Many of my friends back in New York and elsewhere have a glib or dismissive attitude toward Los Angeles. It's a place of strip malls and traffic and not much else, in their opinion.
When I was a drunk, New York was the greatest place in the world. You walk everywhere, everything is open until four in the morning, and people go to New York looking for debauchery.
I read the New Testament, specifically the gospels and I was struck at their divinity, feeling that humans could not have figured this out on their own. We're just not bright enough.
There are certain songs that if people come up to me and tell me how much that song meant to them, I think, You should have better taste, then, because I don't really like that song.
There's something about the human brain, that it actually has a predilection towards negativity, which served us really well when we lived in an environment that was very threatening.
I honestly just love being in my studio working on music. That's all the inspiration I need. And I don't write with an end result in mind, I just write for the simple love of writing.
Every time you read an interview with a supermodel, they're always like, 'Oh, I was a such nerd.' I resent that a little bit. I was in the A/V club. I used to eat my lunch in a closet.
For some reason New York is the epicentre for people who hate me. Maybe this is another reason why I left New York but I get more hatred directed towards me there than any other place.
I can't think of any musician or producer who has influenced me more than Brian Eno. From when he was in Roxy Music, producing Devo, the Talking Heads and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.
I feel like someone who's meditating could possibly benefit their meditation practice and their well-being just by sitting down and thinking about things that they love for ten minutes.
What sounds good on the radio is really loud kick drums and loud snare drums, when everything's bombastic and in your face. It's the equivalent of a houseguest who screams all the time.
I realized that I don't like touring. I'll never complain about it because no one wants to hear about a relatively successful musician complain about the hardships of staying in a hotel.
As an American, no one expected Donald Trump to ever be a serious candidate for President. I don't think he even expected to be a serious candidate. He wanted the free media he would get.
If I spend 100 days in a row making music there’s a chance nothing will come of it. But if I spend 100 days not making music it’s guaranteed that nothing will come of it. So keep working.
I had an epiphany a few years ago where I was out at a celebrity party and it suddenly dawned on me that I had yet to meet a celebrity who is as smart and interesting as any of my friends.
It's a very strange phenomenon being hated by people you've never met. Some journalists just seem to hate me and everything I do, and it's disconcerting because I've never met this person.
There is a dysfunctional strangeness to Los Angeles that doesn't exist in any other western city. The roads are crumbling, no-one knows what they're doing, the city government barely works.
If I'm walking down the street and someone stops me and says, "Oh! A song that you wrote meant a lot to me, and I listened to it after I went to my sister's funeral," that's when it hits me.
We almost need to cultivate - I hate to sound New Age-y - but to cultivate a positive bias, and really work to focus on those things and notice those things that are wonderful and uplifting.
The good thing about not being drop-dead gorgeous is that as time passes, I don't have much to worry about. I have friends who are actors and every day they look in the mirror with trepidation.
Scotland is one of my favourite places to perform: it's really something special. Scottish audiences are just so enthusiastic; their approach to dance music just feels similar to my own somehow.
There are a lot of great animal rights organizations who save dogs and save cats, but the Humane Society is actually really good at working with Congress and getting legislation actually passed.
If one of my heroes comes to me and says, 'Do you want to work on something?' I just say, 'Yes.' I don't ask for details; I don't expect to get paid anything. I just love working with my heroes.
It's sometimes too easy to point fingers when circumstances dramatically go awry, but as an addict, I'm ultimately responsible for my own decisions, no matter how benign or tragic the consequences.
If you're inclined to dismiss L.A. as a place of unrelenting vapidity and generic 1980s architecture, then you're doing yourself and L.A. a huge disservice, and you're just not looking hard enough.
In some of the greatest recordings ever made, the performance is a part of the recording. Dylan's 'Rainy Day Women No. 12 and 35' is all about the esthetic of that performance. You can hear the room.