Long-neck ice-cold beer never broke my heart / But good girls and home on time" - Bruce Hornsby & The Range, "Good Girls" “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” - Leonard Cohen, “Anthem” I think there's a crack in everything,that's how the light gets in - Leonard Cohen, Anthem "I don't make records to sell, I make records to die by." - Johnny Cash, from the song "Pledging My Time" “If you are looking for the next big hit, why not try looking for meaning and purpose?” - Alan Watts, in an interview with Playboy Magazine, circa 1970 “You have to look out the windows of life and let in what is out there. There are people on the street everywhere, you have to open yourself up to it. “ - Debbie Harry, during an interview with NME Magazine (London), circa 1978 “I was very surprised at the number of people that I met who said that they read my blog.” - Charles Bukowski, in an interview in 1972 “People, people, people” - David Bowie, in his song "Rebel, Rebel" “I am for an open door, and a close mouth, and don't you ever clip my wings.” - Ella Fitzgerald, in the song “They Can't Take That Away From Me” “It's such a wonderful thing to be able to do what you want to do,” said Miles Davis in 1959. “We can’t blame nobody else for anything; we go up to the mountain top and find ourselves alone with the music.” - Miles Davis, quoted in the book Kind of Blue: A Portrait of Miles Davis by Robert Gordon “I'm just going to do me, to do what I want to do, the way I want to do it.” - Miles Davis in his 1965 interview with Scott LaFarge “In a lot of ways, as writers, we take more trips than we need to.” - David Sedaris, quoted in an interview with Fresh Air on NPR “I can’t get the sound I want out of any guitar in the world. It’s like trying to make a round peg fit in a square hole.” – Eric Clapton in The Beatles Anthology, 1968 “It's not how much you take, but how much you enjoy the ride. That's how things get done. That's how things work.” - Bill Graham, quoted in The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll, “Some people have the feeling that it's more artistic to live in an urban setting. But most people who think that way go crazy after a while and live on park benches in their underwear. If you like grass and trees and animals and birds, then of course you'd rather be in the country. But for me, I prefer to be in the city. I like noises and traffic and the feeling of vitality in the city. Even if you have all those things in a place in the country, it's not the same. It's not quite as much fun.” - Johnny Cash in an interview with Newsweek magazine “I am a man that knows what he wants. I have no desire to be famous. I have no desire to be rich. I just want to be respected as a human being.” - Elvis Presley, quoted in Where Elvis Fans Gather “You get the hell out of here before I have to arrest you!...You are all nuts! You are a bunch of asses!” - Elvis Presley, from the film The Great Race “A lot of people find it hard to face life and death and think about what it is they really want. They're always thinking about the right food to eat, the right music to listen to, which clothes to wear - when you're really thinking about what you want, it's the same thing. You can put it into words, like 'I want to live out my life so I'm going to die when I want to, and not when my body tells me.'” - Johnny Depp, in his documentary A Moment of Rare Beauty (2004) “There's nothing like a home town - it’s the people you have known all your life - and the best part is that there are people like that everywhere.” - Jimmy Stewart, in his autobiography My Thirty Years in the Movies “All music today is rehash... Everything you hear is a copy of what was already done.” - Sam Phillips “We have never really been able to look ourselves in the face and to know who we are and what we are, except for a very short time in history. And then we have gone into a place of self-consciousness and self-disclosure, and we've lost our true selves.” - Richard Buckner, in his essay on modern culture, The Performer’s Body “A lot of people are so caught up in their own petty dramas they don't have time to notice the music and be moved by it.” - Bob Dylan, in the documentary Tribute “The minute you accept limits, all sorts of things stop being possible.” - Tom Robbins, interviewed in The New York Times Magazine, June 27, 1998 “The past is never dead. It's not even past.” - William Faulkner “You've got to be able to tell yourself a story; you've got to be able to believe it or you'll go crazy. The imagination is a muscle...You must do the physical thing every day...you must train yourself to get into a trance.” - James Joyce, in a letter to Ella, March 1904 “When you grow up, the last thing you really want to be is what your father was.” - Eric Idle “I think the only way we can make any money on music nowadays is to sell the same songs over and over again. What is really frightening is that most people seem to like it. “ - Bono, from an interview with Bill Flanagan, The Observer (London), 1991 “I only play music for my friends and I know they love it. You can't make people do anything they don't wanna do.” - Jerry Garcia, during an interview with David Gans, The Village Voice, October 1, 1972 “People are the biggest problem of all time. People are weird! They're weird and sad and tired and selfish, they live in a miserable world - all that is what people are. Everything else that gets attributed to the group of people who make up society comes from the minds of people who create music.” - Syd Barrett, in an interview with Rolling Stone Magazine (1970) “I went to my doctor, said, ‘How’s my stomach?’ and he said, ‘I'd make love to a tree if I were you.’ And I was, and I did. And I was walking around town with this tree, and I was trying to figure out how I'm going to make love to a tree, and it started to rain. And all these men said, ‘We'll take you home.’ I didn't know why I was so safe. So I said, ‘Okay. Where’s my tree?’” - Bruce Springsteen, in the book Tramp: The Undersung Life of Bruce Springsteen “You are always trying to improve, to push the envelope, and do something bigger and better. That is what a lot of people have got. “ - Dave Matthews, quoted in an interview with Rolling Stone Magazine (2002) “I want to be real, and to speak what I believe.” - Kurt Cobain, quoted in the book Kurt Cobain: A Legacy of an American Rock Star “If you don't learn to say no to anyone, you'll end up doing everything.” - Kurt Cobain, quoted in The Independent “I don't know if it’s a good thing for a rock and roll band to actually say they're better than other groups. It gets to be like bragging, and I really don't care that much about that.” - Kurt Cobain, in an interview with Rolling Stone Magazine (1993) “I thought we were making art.” - Kurt Cobain, in an interview with Rolling Stone Magazine (1993) “When you're very excited and everything is kind of overwhelming and it's a challenge to understand all the information, you sometimes have to do something. And I think drugs might be that thing for someone, because you get so high and so out of it that you sort of have to come down, and then you find a connection with your body that it's okay. And you have to trust that it's okay.” - Kurt Cobain