Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Everyone's got their problems and their demons, but when we get onstage and play as five, that really all goes away, and that's really all I look at.
I don't buy into the idea that you're not supposed to rock & roll after a certain date. Maybe I should be in Bellevue, but I'm just having a good time.
We need to go back to the way it was 30 years ago, when everybody had Grandma and Grandpa, and we were willing to pass moral judgments about right and wrong.
We may need to change the way we think. As in Israel, I think there should be a mandatory draft, where you go away for the service of your country for three years.
Drugs will get you out of your own way, but we lived it, and that's dangerous. It can actually turn around on itself and steal your soul, and that's what happened.
I quit my band in New York City in 1969 and I got really angry at them. I got angry at one of my guitar players and I dove over the drum set and we got into a fight.
Kurt Cobain, when he did his videos, you look into his eyes and he couldn't even face the camera; he was in pain and I'm angry about Kurt. This guy didn't have to die.
I wait till the last minute to do lyrics. I seem to work best that way - bummed out and under pressure. I often don't do my homework. But I'll always walk that extra mile.
I mean, as long as it doesn't have a bra attached, guys can take a risk and wear stylish things that went out of style 30 years ago. As things go around, they come around.
I get the whole thing, I can't talk about it. But they're talking and they got an offer. I hope Axl[Rose] can see the greater picture and not be mad at Duff [McKagan] and Slash.
... if you take a risk, two things will happen. People will laugh at you. Or you'll be way ahead of everybody else. And if that's what you're in it for, then you gotta take that risk.
Through song you learn, and I think school systems need to learn that. Through the rhythm you can learn better, through melody, with something you need to learn; it's a vehicle for it.
Back then it was nothing like today. So you'd go to the bowling alley. We bowled and you could be in the back and you could make out, you know? And you know how hot it was to make out.
Through song you learn, and I think school systems need to learn that. Through the rhythm you can learn better, through melody, with something you need to learn, it's a vehicle for it.
I think if you were to really peek under the hood of what got Aerosmith back again for our second life in the Eighties, you'll find out that it's exactly this, it's the willingness to take a risk.
I just want Aerosmith to always give me a hard-on, that's all I ever ask for, for it to be the most special thing in my life. As long as I look at it through those eyes, it will always be that way.
When people think of Aerosmith, I want them to think of the music we've made and nothing else. I don't want the responsibility of some young kid trying to live his life like I did back in the '70's.
If you take all that I've learned from Joe and all that Joe has learned from me, and you throw all that into a song, not only are you using the gifts that God gave you, but also all the experiences you've had.
Why not share with the world the way it is and tell them my feelings about my cat, and how I played with my kids, and how addicted to Christmas time I am, and the smell of pine needles and hearing my kids laugh.
You should have felt the buzz the moment all five of us got together in the same room for the first time again. We all started laughin'—it was like the five years had never passed. We knew we'd made the right move.
I don't mind being a grandfather; I've been a mother for so many years. You just can't believe what it's like being a father. Especially when you come out of the chaos of the road to getting married and having children.
The fact that I'm still constantly smiling is a remarkable thing, but I love getting out on the road, meeting my fans. I love hearing them say wonderful things and I love being able to thank them in person for reading me.
Once upon a time . . .” “In the beginning was . . .” That’s the way it always starts off. Every story, gospel, history, chronicle, myth, legend, folktale, or old wives’ tale blues riff begins with “Woke up this mornin’. . . .
Now I'm way into suits that I can put on whether I took a shower or not, and wear barefoot and paint my toes black or whatever color the suit is. It's very cool to wear suits like that. Roll up the sleeves and just say yee-haw.
I'm not sure about the selling part, but I've always found that the things I've worn on tour have moved over to what people wear every day. Sometimes the things I wore in the beginning before I had money were things I put together.
A lot of bands have managed to borrow parts of our style for their music. That's fine with me, because we've borrowed from people like the Stones. But we don't want to sound like we're copying anyone, including ourselves, so we're moving on.
Even in the old days, we'd make an effort. When I'd go out to score on Eighth Avenue, I'd get my junk and a chocolate doughnut. But I'd always also pick up one of those pita-pocket health food sandwiches. You know, something really good for me.
You know...sometimes I'll be looking out at the audience and I'll be in the middle of a song, and I'll just stop dead. I'll look out at them, and think what is this... There's one thing that keeps me doing it though, I really love it, I believe in it.
As you know, I'm androgynous. I can wear a jacket that most guys wouldn't put on. But you make it in guys' sizes, and suddenly they're wearing them. I think styles should get back to getting people to wear things that look so good that they don't care.
I grew up in New Hampshire. My closest neighbor was a mile away. The deer and the raccoons were my friends. So I would spend time walking through the woods, looking for the most beautiful tropical thing that can survive the winter in the woods in New Hampshire.
My wife and I had decided not to let anybody take pictures of our home because it was just the last place on earth we had that was unscathed. But people have climbed over the fence; they've taken aerial shots. They've gotten my address and put it on the Internet.
When you start a rock n' roll band, you've gotta fake it till you make it. You begin by doin' what you love- and what you love is usually what some other people have already done. It just depends on how much of a fool you make of yourself along the way to finding your own sound, assuming you find it.
The main thing you worry about is just coming up with songs at all. I don't sit down and write stuff like certain writers do. They think about what they are going to write first and then they write it. I just get what comes in at me. It's like I'm a musician and if I can keep my mitt on, I can catch the balls that come at me.
Rock 'n' roll is sexuality personified. It is attitude. It is all the things that your parents told you not to do. It's the freedom to express yourself. It's being alive. It expresses the times. It's a magazine, a newspaper that tells the truth. If you listen to rap today, it's all about the truth. And that's what we all want. Just give me a little truth.
People used to ask me, 'What do you reckon you'll be doing when you're 40?', and I told 'em 'rocking out and kicking ass!' Now it's 'What do you reckon you'll be doing at 60?' and the answer's exactly the same. I'm always going to love Jimi Hendrix - 'Purple Haze' will still give me a hard-on when I'm hooked up to a life-support machine. Hey, even when I'm dead, they're going to have a hell of a job nailing the coffin lid down.
Its cool when I meet young guys from other bands who say how much an impact Aerosmith has had on them and how much they like me.I'll give 'em that 'C'mon you don't mean that' routine, but in my heart I know where they're coming from. If I had grown up in the '70's and was into rock n' roll, I know the kind of impact Aerosmith would have had on me. I know the kind of impact that Elvis and Jagger had on me, and while I'm not comparing myself to those guys, I can relate.
A lot of my books deal with very controversial issues that most people often don't want to talk about, issues that, in my country, are more likely to get put under the carpet than get discussed. And when you talk about moral conundrums, about shades of gray, what you're doing is asking the people who want the world to be black and white to realize instead that maybe it's all right if it isn't. I know you'll learn something picking up my books, but my goal as a writer is not to teach you but to make you ask more questions.
I do that a lot of authors still do not do is allow people to write directly to me. I get about 50 fan letters a day, and I answer every single one of them myself. It takes a lot of time and sometimes it's a pain in the neck and I answer the same questions over and over. But the truth is these people come to my readings clutching these letters saying, "You wrote me back. I can't believe you wrote me back", and I think it really means a lot for them to know that the author values them just as much as they value the author.
I like the idea all memory is fiction, that we have queued a couple of things in the back of our minds and when we call forth those memories, we are essentially filling in the blanks. We're basically telling ourselves a story, but that story changes based on how old we are, and what mood we're in, and if we've seen photographs recently. We trust other people to tell us the story of our lives before we can remember it, and usually that's our parents and usually it works, but obviously not always. And everybody's interpretation is going to be different.
In America there's a tendency to write the same book over and over because that's what sells. So in a way, my success in America has come at the expense of what I do. I haven't sold out, and I haven't taken the popular road to writing a best-selling book. I've really bucked the system. So it was necessary for me not to go and find the easy fans, the ones who want something digestible and fast with a happy ending that they can read over and over again no matter how many different books it is. I had to find fans who really wanted to think. Worldwide they all have that in common.