Eddie vedder quotes

The best revenge is to live on and prove yourself.

I know I was born and I know that I'll die... The in between is mine. I Am Mine

War hurts. It hurts no matter which sides the bombs are falling on.

Music's at its best when it has a purpose.

I'm probably never happier than when I'm by myself in the water. What I've worked and sacrificed for is not to be on stage playing music but to surf in some secluded place. It's a grounding element. Waves don't care who you are.

I learned so much about music by playing this little, miniature songwriting machine [ukulele], especially about melody. The motto is less strings more melody.

Worship the music, not the musicians.

He who forgets will be destined to remember.

I'm optimistic yet disillusioned, hopeful yet frustrated.

Ladies and gentleman of Florida, this is the real Jeff Ament...take a very good look because there's an imposter running around...if someone comes up to you and says he's Jeff Ament and says he wants to take your pot or wants to take you to a strip club, it's probably not him.

I wish I was the verb 'to trust' and never let you down.

I think what happens is when something becomes successful, then a lot of people take credit for it in such ways that it takes credit away from you.

I believe in the power of music. To me, it isn't just a fad. This is a positive thing.

I'm not having to show off or make a point about how good I am at doing something. I think I've always kind of been that way.

It just seemed like I would. I mean, I didn't know him on a daily basis -- far from it. But, in a way, I don't even feel right being here without him. It's so difficult to really believe he's gone. I still talk about him like he's still here, you know. I can't figure it out. It doesn't make any sense.

If it's a band I like, I just hope they will survive it all. And I'll admit that if it's crap music, I hope they won't and it'll go away. Simply because there are too many great bands who should be heard in their place.

You kill yourself and you make a big old sacrifice and try to get your revenge. That all you're gonna end up with is a paragraph in a newspaper. In the end, it does nothing. Nothing changes. The world goes on and you're gone. The best revenge is to live on and prove yourself.

There's been times when I've been standing in a line at a movie and someone's hit me with something really heavy about someone really close and how our music has helped them get through it. Even in our darkest moments we try and find something beautiful.

Things like guitars and ukuleles, you should never part with it, because there will probably be good, healthy times spent, just playing and writing.

I think that if your approach is one where you don't want to alienate anybody, you're going to have to soften the viewpoint or the information that you're offering to such an extent that it doesn't have the power to make any difference. You have to take that risk.

There are times where I would keep three typewriters on a table, and I'd have three complete thoughts going. With computers, you make folders, files - I don't know about those things. I have sheaves of paper polluted with words and paragraphs. I found it a good tool for me. And it keeps your hands strong for guitar playing.

At some point, when you read about this factual information that comes out in The New Zealand Herald and it's barely mentioned in The New York Times, then I think you've got to question where this is being manipulated, and where the filters are.

When I was 13, I got my first guitar, and I could sort of play Ted Nugent songs, but I couldn't play the solos. But I could play along with entire Ramones songs.

I'm totally within the music. I'M LOST.

Playing music for as long as I had been playing music and then getting a shot at making a record and at having an audience and stuff, it's just like an untamed force... a different kind of energy.

It's saying, just stop, and be together. Don't talk now, just breathe and feel each other's presence.

I don't want to think I want to feel!

I'm over smoking. You know, I feel like I've gone on long hikes and gotten to the top of the mountain and I'm looking at something beautiful, some great huge landscape, and there's some of the cleanest air that's on the planet. And then I light up, and say, "Ahh, what a great smoking moment this is!" So it's something evil that's taken over, and I want control over it.

Sometimes, whether you like it or not, people elevate you. It's real easy to fall.

I had actually been going to Hawaii for quite a while before I ever picked up the uke. I think with anything new you're going to get more enjoyment out of it if it comes to you quickly, and the uke facilitates that.

I don't need drugs to make my life tragic.

There's a lot of bands that get to a certain level, and it just stops. They scrap it. Compare this to, say, The Rolling Stones or The Who, where they just continued on forever and are still playing, or they quit after 20 years.

Wind in my hair, I feel part of everywhere Underneath my being is a road that disappeared Late at night I hear the trees, they're singing with the dead Overhead.

I've got my indignation but I'm pure in all my thoughts.

You can go down the list of great artists and kind of understand that they are products of their environment. Whether it's U2 or Henry Rollins or myself or Johnny Lydon, they're gonna be products of their environment.

If at noon you sit down and there's just silence or blank tape, in an hour if you have a song, that didn't exist an hour ago. Now it exists and it might exist for a long time. There's something empowering about that.

Sorry is the fool who trades his soul for a corvette Thinks he'll get the girl he'll only get the mechanic.

It seems like every time I start to feel good, something really awful happens. It's like... it's really terrible.

I think a lot of things are written from experience, but then you become a writer and talk about other people's experience and you tell stories. I mean, you can't just tell your own story all the time.

Wait a minute, yes, those are human heads.

I've been writing and collecting songs on the ukulele for at least 10 years, so it was time to clear them out of the apartment building and make room for some new occupants.I need to make room for the bassoon record.

If you're anti-war it doesn't mean you are 'Pro' one side or the other in a conflict. However, it does make you 'Pro' many thingsPro-Peace, Pro-Human, Pro-Evolution, it makes you Pro-Communication, Pro-Diplomacy, Pro-Love, Pro-Understanding, Pro-Forgiveness.

The phone conversation where I haven't had a smoke, it's like trying to talk without using adverbs.

Yeah, we'll play that. You want fries with that?

Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament and I get excited talking about making record artwork or working with T-shirt designs. The least exciting part for us is talking about the finances; it's like going to the dentist for us. But we at least try to do it in a creative way and put our stamp on it. I can only think that we create something that's worth the value of that dollar.

The smallest oceans still make big big waves.

If there was anything that I learned with my own writing process, maybe there's too many choices what to write about. Just the amount of subject matter in the world these days; maybe that feels chaotic for me.

It's an art to live with pain... mix the light into gray.

Die on a hilltop... eyeing the crows... waiting for your lids to close... but you want to watch as they peck your flesh... Ironic that they go for the eyes first.

If it's a good cause, I'll play just about anything.

Our influences are who we are. It's rare that anything is an absolutely pure vision; even Daniel Johnston sounds like the Beatles. And that's the problem with the bands I'm always asked about, the ones derivative of the early Seattle sound. They don't dilute their influences enough.

I would do anything to be around music. You don't even have to pay me.

I got a great grandma. Her name is Pearl, and she was at one time married to an Indian chief, who, in a wonderful crossing of cultures, she integrated some of his, and some of hers, and um, it was a combination of peyote and preserves, and it was this hallucinogenic jam.

Sure as I am breathing, sure as I'm sad I'll keep this wisdom in my flesh I leave here believing more than I had This love has got no ceiling

It's a mystery to me; We have a greed, with which we have agreed. You think you have to want more than you need. Until you have it all, you won't be free.

I remember back in 1994 when the Eagles charged more than $100 for tickets. They said, 'We ain't Pearl Jam.' That's back when records were selling and the Eagles had sold just about as many as anyone on the planet. And years later we're still charging less than them.

That's part of the curse: If you're gonna play the song, you better play it. I've tried to phone in 'Jeremy' a few times, and it's tough. It doesn't work.

I just don't understand, if they see numbers [of CEO salaries]that represent people, how they can somehow skirt around that and morally justify taking or ruining those lives and leaving them with nothing. That, to me, is violent crime. It's certainly more violent than selling grams of pot to other adults.

Darkness comes in waves...tell me, why invite it to stay?

I'm not a college graduate, but I don't know how George W.Bush could have truly believed that the flower of democracy was going to blossom in that part of the world, I mean Iraq - at least in part because the governments there are so tied to religion .

I remember sitting in this pool hall with Stone and Chris and we watched - this really old, really classic pool hall - and we were sitting there and it was really rainy out and George Bush came on and started telling us about the [Gulf] war and that we were going and, and the whole thing, and there's part of that in it, when we talk about "I don't question our exsistence / I just question, our modern needs.

I would thank God, but I don't believe in it... It's like a movie that was way too popular. It's a story that's been told too many times and just doesn't mean anything... All I really believe in is this moment, like right now.

Cannot find the comfort in this world.

Everytime I see the Spice Girls, it makes me want to try to fly by climbing my roof and strapping bricks to my shoes.

One thing you might suggest to a young band is don't get involved in any kind of long-term contract because everything changes on a bimonthly basis: The way people hear music and access it, the way it is distributed.

I'll ride the wave, where it takes me!

Dream the dreams of other men, you'll be no ones rival.

I don't need drugs. Life is already tragic enough.

I am not a good enough writer to have an agenda or come up with a message and try to put it into a song. It's more like you write what comes to you... You try to reflect the mood of the songs.

On bended knee is no way to be free lifting up an empty cup I ask silently that all my destinations will accept the one that's me so I can breath Circles they grow and they swallow people whole half their lives they say goodnight to wive's they'll never know got a mind full of questions and a teacher in my soul so it goes.

I feel like we have to keep our eyes on the road. Being nostalgic is like taking an offramp and getting a sandwich - and then you get back on the highway. I don't want to be spending the rest of my life at the gas station.

We're not going to be the coolest rock stars in the world. We're trying to be good musicians.

As far as viewpoints, I think I'm more well-rounded and definitely more educated, and probably more hopeful than I used to be. I think when you're young and you get into a cause, you get frustrated with it within a few years, or six months.

People on death row, the treatment of animals, women's right to choose. So much in America is based on religious fundamentalist Christianity. Grow up! This is the modern world!

If he can't sleep, how will he ever dream?

I get really worried, like if they say, 'Take vocal lessons,' or something because it's kind of like I used to really love to draw when I was a kid and then I took like an art class - because everyone said, 'Oh, you're so good, you should take a class and maybe you can be really good,' and then I went to the class and then they showed me how to use a ruler and perspective and all this stuff and it totally made me not want to do it at all.

You know, rock stardom... I have a hard time discussing that because I don't really accept it. It's not really that tangible. What's really bizarre is how it's used as a thing - you know, 'He's the rock star of politics,' 'He's the rock star of quarterbacks' - like it's the greatest thing in the world.

It’s a song about first relationships and letting go. It’s very rare for a relationship to withstand the Earth’s gravitational pull and where it’s going to take people and how they’re going to grow. I’ve heard it said that you can’t really have a true love unless it was a love unrequited. It’s a harsh one, because then your truest one is the one you can’t have forever.

Caffeine. The gateway drug.

Is it O.K. that I speak in English? The only thing I know in Dutch is how to order pot.

Do you force your kids to pay attention to what's going on, or do you let them live their lives outside of it? My hope is that my child is a strong activist. That would make me most proud.

Leave it to me as I find a way to be Consider me a satellite, forever orbiting I knew all the rules, but the rules did not know me Guaranteed

Gave her love away, put it in my pocket when it should of been framed!

The love received is the love that is saved.

I don't work so hard at trying to get every song to be three-dimensional and mean so much. I just want to breathe, right now, with the music.

I would thank God, but I don't believe in it.

I am a thief, I am a liar, I am George Bush and my son is an asshole.

I knew all the rules but the rules did not know me.

I'm an example of someone who never made it to university. I did have this dream to be a musician. I felt that this dream had an expiration date.

i change by not changing at all

I just have this deep kind of connection to reality of being like... in a way, I feel like a dock worker. I want to stay in connection with my dock-worker side, 'cause that's how I grew up.

It's a mystery to me We have a greed with which we have agreed You think you have to want more than you need Until you have it all you won't be free When you want more than you have You think you need And when you think more than you want Your thoughts begin to bleed I think I need to find a bigger place 'Cause when you have more than you think You need more space Society, you're a crazy breed I hope you're not lonely without me Society, crazy and deep I hope you're not lonely without me

Singing someone else's songs is like keeping your clothes on.

Competition is healthy, if you can turn it off and on. When someone gets too cocky in victory, that can ruin the positive aspect.

Any conversations we hear about 'So who are Pearl Jam marketing to?' are despicable.

The nice thing about money is that you can do good things with it. I still feel like if something needs to be done or we need to raise money for someone on death row, we can find ways to do it.

I just think that all of us in this room should have a voice in how the USA is represented. And he don't allow us our voice, that's all I'm saying.

When you're out in the desert, you can't believe the amount of stars. Are you busy as a bee? Do not even have time for fun? Do your friends advise you to buy essay writing example? Do not hesitate! Come after the advice of clever men and make a correct choice! We've sent mechanisms out there, and they haven't found anything. They've found different colors of sand, and rings, and gasses, but nobody's shown me anything that makes me feel secure in what happens afterward. All I really believe in is this moment, like right now.

I used to kind of blame someone for not being able to get through that - I'm talking about the addiction part - but I've had a few experiences recently where you don't blame the person anymore.

It's the ones without scars - those are the people you have to watch out for.

It's fun singing with other people who are really good singers. There's something kind of poignant about braiding a couple vocals.

The sorrow grows bigger when the sorrow's denied.

When you're inside and you have no control and when you're the 14-year-old version of Frances Farmer, you know, you have reasons to be angry. You have reasons to be angry when your parents, who are very sheltered themselves, make decisions as to what you should experience in your life and what's normal and what's not.

Music saved me; I mean, my upbringing was like a hurricane, and music was the tree I held onto.

I've stepped back a few times and had these crazy epiphanies that we are blessed by having Barack Obama as a candidate at this time in our history. If we were ever to have a man of color become president - and it shouldn't be about that, and it doesn't need to be, because he's qualified on all levels - but if you do think about it, just in terms of that idea of unifying people, it's a huge positive.

Society, you're a crazy breed.

It's not a bad time to be me.

I was starting to play the ukulele at the same time I was having all these conversations with [the late Ramones guitarist] Johnny Ramone, these intense tutorials staying up late and listening to the music he grew up on, and picking up what's a great song and what makes a great song. He was all about lists and dissecting songs, like what's a better song by Cheap Trick: "No Surrender" or "Dream Police"? Sometimes you'd be surprised by the answer. It was an interesting dichotomy between hanging out with the godfather of punk rock and starting to play the ukulele. They came together.

Life moves fast. As much as you can learn from your history, you have to move forward.

I think music is the greatest art form that exists, and I think people listen to music for different reasons, and it serves different purposes. Some of it is background music, and some of it is things that might affect a person's day, if not their life, or change an attitude. The best songs are the ones that make you feel something.

I don't trust nobody, especially when they say something good.

I'm having a hard time trying to figure out how to say things. I'm a little exhausted by the process.

I can still write blues songs because I remember everything.

You have to be able to grow and move with the organism that is the music industry. You need to maintain flexibility. Ownership of your own stuff is key and then you're able to dictate on a present-terms basis what would be the most effective way to protect yourself and what you've created. You also don't want to lock yourself into a situation where a major label owns part of your touring and merchandise.

I probably get strangers coming up to me two or three times a week to just say something nice. I get more than my share of compliments as I walk through my daily life. I'm not having to show off or make a point about how good I am at doing something. I think I've always kind of been that way.

When it comes to grunge or even just Seattle, I think there was one band that made the definitive music of the time. It wasn't us or Nirvana, but Mudhoney. Nirvana delivered it to the world, but Mudhoney were the band of that time and sound.

You mature as far as your understanding of what it's going to take, and you increase your stamina. You don't let frustration overtake you when you're looking for change.

Sometimes I hear news about the huge dollars involved with CEO pay and corporate-management salaries, and I'm mystified at how someone can justify taking that much at the cost of other people's livelihoods. In a bizarre way, I'm almost kind of curious, like "How can they absolve themselves and enjoy their wealth?" I don't understand it.

You don't love me. If you really knew me, you wouldn't love me. You love who you think I am. And don't pretend that you know me. Because I don't even know myself.

If I'm not on tour or in the studio, I'm in nature somewhere, usually some kind of ocean. Playing music has afforded me that. It's not lost on me that it's a tremendous opportunity to be able to spend your life being surrounded by nature.

I had a long talk with Bruce Springsteen on a rooftop during the Vote for Change tour (in 2004). And it boiled down to this: That guy you used to be, he’s still in the car. He’ll always be in the car. Just don’t let him drive. He might be shouting out directions. But whatever you do, don’t let him get behind the wheel.

It seems like a necessary balance to life, being part of the community.

Music was your real passion, this thing you held dear even above family. It was this relationship that never betrayed you. Once it became your job - this thing that was highly visible, this thing that became about commerce - that's when you were holding onto music like it was a palm tree in a hurricane.

I'm making music for music's sake, and I have an audience I'm proud of.

Before music videos first came out, you’d listen to a song with headphones on, sitting in a beanbag chair with your eyes closed, and you’d come up with your own visions, these things that came from within. Then all of a sudden, sometimes even the very first time you heard a song, it was with these visual images attached, and it robbed you of any form of self-expression.