Don't waste the time. Time is the final currency, man. Not money, not power - it's time.
I think ideas are still the most powerful things on the planet, and music is a great way to transmit them.
There are a lot of people who look great but can't sing.
I am having so much fun performing, I feel almost guilty. I think, my God, I hope no one comes and busts me for this.
I've been given a gift [musical talent] - don't misuse it. I spent a lot of time just wasting that talent, not treasuring it, not valuing it, not respecting it, just taking it for granted. That was a hard lesson to learn. It doesn't come for free. Don't do that. Treasure it, respect it, treat it as a responsibility that you've been given, and enjoy the hell out of it.
I don't think being angry is useful or healthy, and usually when I get angry, my brain just goes right out the window. Boom, as soon as the adrenaline hits, instant stupid. Just add water and mix.
It's hard to bullshit the ocean. It's not listening, you know what I mean.
"It can't happen here" is number one on the list of famous last words.
I'm not givin' in an inch to fear.
I don't like greed, I don't like ignorance. I really don't like anger. But I love love.
All wars would end immediately if the various chiefs of state dropped a little LSD.
Chestnut brown canary, ruby throated sparrow, sing a song, don't be long, thrill me to the marrow.
The stupid thing I incorrectly believed for a long time is that I believed for a long time that some politicians could sometimes tell the truth.
I come from a school of people, folk singers, and the tradition there is troubadours, and you're carrying a message. Admittedly, our job is partly just to make you boogie, just make you want to dance. Part of our job is to take you on a little voyage, tell you a story.But part of our job is to communicate the way a town crier did: It's 12:00 and all is well, or it's 11:30 and the whole Congress is sold. It's part of the job.
The easiest way to get laid by a girl, or get rid of her, is to write a song about her.
There has never been a communism that worked. They were all dictatorships or oligarchies, every single one.
I believe in this country [the USA], I love this country, I believe in the idea of this country, and this country is an idea.
I have a pretty clear picture of the whole weight of my life, and there are things that I've done that are good, and I'm proud of them. There are things that I'm really not proud of, and that they, you have to look at me with a perspective, and I try really hard to do that, to keep from thinking I'm cool and ever so smart.
I think music is a lifting force, I think love is the lifting force in the human condition. I think you see someone loving on their child, and it moves you, and you can't help it.
My songs emerge from my life, or wherever they do, unbidden and unplanned and completely on a schedule of their own.
Largely I write from life. ... I write from what happens to me. Mostly about love. People notice the other stuff more but I write mostly about love.
The greatest thing is the internet and that means that anybody, you have just as much access as I do. And you can make your little tape and work on it and work on it until you got it the way you want it. And then you can put it on the net. And if it's any damn good somebody's gonna notice. That's happened over and over again now. To me that's good. That's good access that isn't controlled by the companies. I think that's a great thing.
I do like to smoke pot. I think it's good.
The fact is that all the recording science and technology in the world is no substitute for a good song or for real feeling. Music is about feeling and if there isn't any genuine feeling, if the song isn't about anything that anyone gives a damn about, there's nothing you can do. All the technique that exists won't make it any good; it'll just make it technological. All the production values you add won't do anything except make it glossy.
I want to go to Africa and find a really great hotel with good food right above a water hole where I can sit, have breakfast, and just watch the elephants play in the water.
