Neil Peart Quotes
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Quick to judge, quick to anger, slow to understand... prejudice, fear and ignorance walk hand-in-hand.
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With people too, you constantly think, "If I'm nice to people and treat them well, they'll appreciate it and behave better." They won't, but it's still not a bad way to live.
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Half the world cries Half the world laughs Half the world tries To be the other half.
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They say there are strangers who threaten usIn our immigrants and infidelsThey say there is strangeness too dangerousIn our theaters and bookstore shelvesThat those who know what's best for usMust rise and save us from ourselves - Witch Hunt (Part III of 'Fear') (1980)
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Lessons taught but never learned, all around us anger burns. Guide the future by the past. Long ago the mould was cast.
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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 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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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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Don't try to change Doofus, let Doofus change you.
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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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If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
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The tarot card 'The Tower' seemed a chilling reflection of the events of September 11, 2001.
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While I believe in all that freedom, I also believe that no one should suffer needlessly.
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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 am a big fan of Dos Passos' stylistic ability, his poetic approach to prose, but the ideas presented in the songs are quite different from those which he exemplified.
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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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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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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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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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I don't like lyrics that are just thrown together, that were obviously written as you went along, or the song was already written and the guy made up the lyrics in five minutes.
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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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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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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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One likes to believe in the freedom of music...