Neil Peart Quotes
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When I was young, my ambitions were very modest. I thought, "If only I could play at the battle of the bands at the Y, that would be the culmination of existence!"
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To get nostalgic about other people's music, or even about your own, makes a terrible statement about the condition of your life and your prospects for the future.
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Wheels can take you around.Wheels can cut you down.We can go from boom to bust.From dreams to a bowl of dust.We can fall from rockets' red glare, down to 'Brother can you spare...'Another war.Another wasteland.And another lost generation - Between The Wheels (1984)
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Half the world hates What half the world does every day Half the world waits While half gets on with it anyway.
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You can do a lot in a lifetime, if you don't burn out too fast/You can make the most of the distance/First you need endurance/First you've got to last.
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How I prayed just to get awayTo carry me anywhereSometimes the angels punish usBy answering our prayers - Carnies (2012)
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To me, the highest expression of life is art with jokes. It's very rarified, very difficult to accomplish if you want to be more than just funny, and more than just jokes about human gaseousness.
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People don't realize the limitations of 200 words, and the way they get chiselled down into a song that has to be sung.
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All four winds together can't bring the world to me Shadows cast a play of light, so much I want to see Chase the sun around the world, I want to look at life-In the Available Light. I'll go with the wind, I'll stand in the light.
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I expect if you're a professional public speaker, you probably wouldn't want to go onstage and sing and play drums.
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I love jokes as much as anyone, but I don't want to hear my snail jokes every day. But I might want to hear a good song every day.
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Pure libertarianism believes that people will be generous and help each other. Well, they won't. I wish it were so, and I live that way.
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It's interesting. I've known quite a few good athletes that can't begin to play a beat on the drum set. Most team sport is about the smooth fluidity of hand-eye coordination and physical grace, where drumming is much more about splitting all those things up.
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If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
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What a young musician's dream, to say, "Look at those chrome drums. Look at that 22-inch ride cymbal. I'll have those." It was one of those unparalleled exciting days of your life.
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The tarot card 'The Tower' seemed a chilling reflection of the events of September 11, 2001.
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Innocence gave me confidence to go up against reality.
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...The important thing is: if you fail once, or if your luck is bad this time, the dream is still there. A dream is only over if you give it up-or if it comes true.
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It is impossible to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ and be a Republican. It's philosophically absolutely opposed - if they could only think about what they were saying for a minute. That's when you get caught up in the webs of what people call themselves and how they behave.
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I think everything I do has Howard Roark [hero of The Fountainhead] in it, you know, as much as anything. The person I write for is Howard Roark.
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What is a master but a master student? And if that's true, then there's a responsibility on you to keep getting better and to explore avenues of your profession.
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There's still a lot I'm angry about, a lot of human behaviour that's appalling and despicable, but you choose what you can fight against. I always thought if I could just put something in words perfectly enough, people would get the idea and it would change things.
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There's a new reality born every minute. Unless one is a believer in predestination (in which case I'll call the prestidigitator), or other puppet-like restraints on our powers, one is free to imagine and effect changes on the world. And if enough people do it, there are big changes. These things happen. Anything can.
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When I'm riding my motorcycle, I'm glad to be alive. When I stop riding my motorcycle, I'm glad to be alive.