Bonnie Raitt Quotes - Page 3

I grew up in Los Angeles in a Quaker family, and for me being Quaker was a political calling rather than a religious one.

One of the biggest obstacles I've overcome in my life was thinking I didn't deserve to be successful. Artistically I'm not as much of a heavyweight as someone like Paul Simon or Joni Mitchell, because I'm not a creator of original music, and I worried about that for years.

When they were putting oil rigs up and down the California coast, the whole issue of safe energy and the addiction to fossil fuels really came into focus.

I don't know if I'm a heroine; I'm just somebody that can cheer the troops by singing to folks, and have receptions after the show, and tithe a dollar of every ticket sale for all kinds of different great charities and social action groups.

Between the redwoods, growing up and enjoying nature, camping on almost every vacation, and getting to go to summer camp in the Adirondacks, it was really very apparent to me that we had to preserve what we had on the earth.

The connection between toxicity and cancer and safe air and water and food, all of that was important all along, as were women's and human rights issues, but the nuke issue and the safe energy movement became really important to me in the mid-'70s.

The anti-nuke movement has important and far-reaching implications for grassroots organizing. It can unite kids and musicians, everybody, whether they're leftist or rightist, or radical, or Republican, because energy is energy. But in fact, it is a real political struggle - it shows people that it's big business against the people.

Nobody went out to pasture, and a lot of people are doing their best work. Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, and Sting are at the top of their game. I mean, Tony Bennett is the coolest guy I ever met! We have to figure out how to break out of this age ghetto.

I don't need any drug to show me Heaven And I sure know how to spend plenty of time cleaning Hell But I'm missin' that feeling of falling.

I'm honored when young people say they've gone to school on slide guitar with my records. But people get their influence from my live shows and records and YouTube, not me personally. I walk around with a hat on. People don't know it's me.

My love was Bob Dylan, but as I got older I realized a good ballad was a good ballad.

The fact is that this conversation is going on at every level at every age, we're all going, "God, what a jerk I've been," "How could I have married that guy?" or "How could I have done this or that?" With time, this is the gift of being older, that you get to look back and say, "It wasn't all about them."

I don't want to discredit people's opinions of me, but you talk about the violin or the cello or lead guitar where you have to learn tons of chords, that's much more difficult.

I'm in a relationship, and I've been in one in a while, but all the people I've been with at various points - and I've had sequentially monogamous relationships my whole life - were all the right people at the right time.

Leading a band and producing yourself and picking cool tunes and putting a show together takes a lot of thought, and a certain amount of courage. In my early twenties, if I wasn't getting good enough at it, then people would not come and see me. Anybody who has lasted this long - I hope we get better with age.

Some people are caricatures of themselves, and some people keep people coming back and keep themselves growing. Otherwise, the fans would get bored.

It's very personal in California to live within hours, and sometimes just a few miles, of earthquake faults when nuclear plants were being built.

My career is based on the slow build of an audience based on putting on a good show live and putting out a record every couple of years. I was already doing really well in terms of my goals, to keep my fans coming back.

There's so many amazing articles coming out all the time and because of the internet circulating great writing - even if the writers don't get paid enough most of the time, unfortunately - but there's never been a more amazing flow of information on all of the issues. I would love to see a revival of what we had against the war in the '60s - we could do thes

Whatever role we were in our family of birth, we take on this persona and in your 20s and 30s in particular, you end up thinking that's you and that isn't necessarily you.

Part of the reason I had such a drive to be an activist, and support other activists, is because I was raised Quaker and my parents kept us very much informed and involved as kids in civil rights and the conservation movement.

I'm one of those people who just doesn't plan my personal life. I plan my professional life.

It's a lot harder to be clear-headed, but the good stuff is when you start realizing who's really you.

I'm glad I get singled out for my slide guitar-playing, which isn't that difficult to do. I didn't take guitar lessons, but I just love the way it sounds, almost like the human voice.

With slide guitar, you're just hanging this piece of glass on your hand. It's a really beautiful instrument in that it's so responsive, you're just slipping your hand back and forth.