Neil young quotes

As important as the funds are, the vision is the greatest gift.

I totally have no other talent and I would be totally out of work if I did anything else.

I used to walk like a giant on the land. Now I feel like a leaf floating in a stream

Out of the blue and into the black

It's only a dream Just a memory without anywhere to stay

Southern change gonna come at last! Now your crosses are burning fast, Southern Man.

I'm not into organized religion. I'm into believing in a higher source of creation, realizing we're all just part of nature.

Old man take a look at my life, I'm a lot like you were.

Crazy friends provide for crazy times, and such crazy times we're had.

I'm always open to new stuff. I don't sit and try to figure out what to do, I just wait for an idea to come.

I always play more than I talk, so the more I talk, the more I'll play.

There's an edge to real rock 'n' roll. It's all that matters.

As you go through life, you've got to see the valleys as well as the peaks.

Freedom of choice is meaningless without knowledge. That's why it's crucial we all get engaged and get informed.

Don't think. The worst songs I've ever written happen when I think.

Steve Jobs was a digital pioneer, but when he went home, he listened to vinyl.

And as an afterthought, this too must be told: Some people have taken pure bullshit and turned it into gold.

Possessions and concessions are not often what they seem, they drag you down and load you down in disguise of security.

Said the condor to the preying mantis, we're gonna lose this place just like we lost Atlantis.

I'm free to give my love, but you're not the one I'm thinking of.

A lot of people that buy vinyl today don’t realise that they’re listening to CD masters on vinyl and that’s because the record companies have figured out that people want vinyl, And they're only making CD masters in digital, so all the new products that come out on vinyl are actually CDs on vinyl, which is really nothing but a fashion statement.

I'm not into this judgmental, religious-right kind of thing.

Went looking for faith on the forest floor, and it showed up everywhere. In the sun, and the water, and the falling leaves, the falling leaves of time.

A job is never truly finished. It just reaches a stage where it can be left on its own for a while.

Let's roll for justice, let's roll for truth. Let's not let our children grow up fearful in their youth.

I do not trust self serving misinformation coming from corporations and their media trolls. I do not trust politicians who are taking millions from those corporations either. I trust people. So I make my music for people not for candidates.

I didn't really know what I was doing when I started. I just started writing songs. After two songs I just continued to explore it.

The person who still blushes is not yet a degenerate.

Respect Mother Earth and her giving ways or trade away our children's days.

There was a band playing in my head, And I felt like getting high

I have so many opinions about everything it just comes out during my music. It's a battle for me. I try not to be preachy. That's a real danger.

There's more to a picture than meets the eye.

Some get stoned, some get strange, but sooner or later it all gets real.

All these people talking about morality should just take a walk downtown. They don't want to go downtown because instantly they see homeless people and they don't want to.

I look at radio as gone … Piracy is the new radio, that’s how music gets around.

I'll go for things that I know are going to be wrong, with a vengeance

A little love and affection in everything you do will make the world a better place with or without you.

It was then I knew I'd had enough, Burned my credit card for fuel Headed out to where the pavement turns to sand With a one-way ticket to the land of truth And my suitcase in my hand

I'm not a preacher, and I'm certainly not a good example, but I have my own feelings about God. I'm kind of a nature guy. My cathedral is forests, or the prairies, or the beach.

We live in the digital age and, unfortunately, it’s degrading our music, not improving it It’s not that digital is bad or inferior, it’s that the way it’s being used isn’t doing justice to the art. The MP3 only has 5 percent of the data present in the original recording. … The convenience of the digital age has forced people to choose between quality and convenience, but they shouldn’t have to make that choice.

Instead of cursing the darkness, light a candle for where we're going. There's something ahead worth fighting for.

When I speak out on corporations hurting the common man or the environment or other species, I expect a well-financed disinformation campaign to be aimed my way.

Without freedom of expression, good taste means nothing.

I don't force it. If you don't have an idea and you don't hear anything going over and over in your head, don't sit down and try to write a song. You know, go mow the lawn...My songs speak for themselves.

It doesn't mean that much to me to mean that much to you.

Keep on rockin' in the free world.

I'm not the same as I was long ago, I've learned some new things and I hope that it shows.

Holding back is so close to stealing.

My life is not a political campaign. I just write about what is on my mind. I just play whatever I feel like playing. Whatever is in my soul at the time is what I want to do. I have, thank god, enough people who are still interested in what I am doing so that I can go out and keep doing it.

I've always been better moving than I am standing still.

The person who builds a character makes foes.

I just wrote one song at a time. Kinda like an alcoholic. One day at a time.

Rock and roll is here to stay.

Being sued by your own record company, that's even better than receiving a Grammy

I was a Reagan backer. It was a shock for some people that I could agree with anything that man would say.

It's easy to get buried in the past when you try to make a good thing last.

It doesn't affect me because I look at the internet as the new radio. I look at the radio as gone. [...] Piracy is the new radio. That's how music gets around. [...] That's the radio. If you really want to hear it, let's make it available, let them hear it, let them hear the 95 percent of it.

Live music is better.

Keep it moving. Don't hoard. Money's no good, get rid of it. Turn it into people doing things. Turn it into jobs. Turn it into happiness...The more people I employ, the happier I am - that means my money's goin' into other people's lives, and if I can give 'em something to create that they can be happy with, that's great.

Love and only love will endure. Hate is everything you think it is. Love and only love will break it down.

I am just a dreamer, but you are just a dream

For whatever you're doing, for your creative juices, your geography's got a hell of a lot to do with it. You really have to be in a good place, and then you have to be either on your way there or on your way from there.

Only love can break your heart.

Welfare mothers make better lovers.

It's better to burn out, than to fade away.

Every wave is new until it breaks.

Tin soldiers and Nixon's coming We're finally on our own This summer I hear the drumming Four dead in Ohio Gotta get down to it Soldiers are gunning us down Should have been done long ago What if you knew her and Found her dead on the ground How can you run when you know

Back then people closed their eyes and listened to music. Today there's a lot of images that go with the music. A lot of music is crap and it's all commercial and the images are all trying to sell the record.

Give a hippie too much money and anything can happen.

Ain't singing for Pepsi, ain't singing for Coke, I don't sing for nobody, makes me look like a joke.

There's two kinds of love, one is wrong and one is right.

I try not to look back. I'm looking forward. I'm worried more about what I'm going to do next week than I am what I did last week. There are too many things to do. Looking back is for everybody else.

Imagination is my best friend.

When people start asking you to do the same thing over and over again, that's when you know you're way too close to something that you don't want to be near.

I don't like the current political system in the USA and some other countries. Increasingly democracy has been hijacked by corporate interests.

I dreamed I saw the silver spaceships flying in the yellow haze of the sun. There were children crying and colors flying all around the chosen ones.

I see country music, I see people who take care of their own. You've got 75 year-old guys on the road. That's what I was put here to do, y'know, so I wanna make sure I surround myself with people who are gonna take care of me. 'Cause I'm in it for the long run.

Don't let it bring you down. It's only castles burning, find someone who's turning, and you will come around.

Pearl Jam is a band I have a lot of respect for. Nirvana and Sonic Youth I feel the same way about. Mumford & Sons, My Morning Jacket, Wilco, Givers, and Foo Fighters are just some of my favorites. I respect bands that give me something of themselves that I can feel. ("Posing" bands turn me off generally speaking.) It all has to do with a feeling I have about them. That is what music is to me, a feeling. It's similar with people too.

As I get older, I get smaller. I see other parts of the world I didn't see before. Other points of view. I see outside myself more.

The '60s was one of the first times the power of music was used by a generation to bind them together.

Learning from other people is what music is all about.

If you follow every dream, you might get lost.

I like to play with people who can play simple and are not threatened by other musicians thinking they can't play. And that eliminates 99 percent of the musicians.

Everybody seems to wonder what it's like down here. I gotta get away from this day-to-day running around. Everybody knows this is nowhere.

My my, hey hey... Rock and roll is here to stay. Hey hey, my my... Rock and roll will never die.

Corporations don't have children. They don't have feelings or souls. They don't depend on uncontaminated water, clean air, or healthy food to survive. They are beholden to one thing - the bottom line.

It's going to take a lot of love to make things work out right.

As soon as you start talking about mystique, you have none.

Love is a rose But you better not pick it. It only grows When it's on the vine. Handful of thorns And you'll know you missed it. You lose your love When you say the word MINE.

In my life I have had various health threats: polio, seizures, a brain aneurysm. None of these things has really changed me much, although it is hard to say for sure. These are events that are part of my life. They make me who I am. I am thankful for them. They are scary.

Once I thought I saw you in a crowded hazy bar, Dancing on the light from star to star. Far across the moonbeam I know that's who you are, I saw your brown eyes turning once to fire. I am just a dreamer, but you are just a dream, You could have been anyone to me. Before that moment you touched my lips That perfect feeling when time just slips Away between us on our foggy trip.

What's female beauty, but an air divine, thro' which the mind's all gentle graces shine? They, like the sun, irradiate all between; the body charms because the soul is seen.

I see a woman in the night with a baby in her hand, under an old street light near a garbage can.

I see a government completely out of control, and money is number one. Integrity isn't even on the map.

Most pleasures, like flowers when gathered die.

Hate was just a legend and war was never known. The people worked together and they lifted many stones.

Faith is not reason's labour, but repose.

Now I'm livin' out here on the beach, but those seagulls are still out of reach.

The devil fools with the best laid plans.

We're very highly evolved, and we should be very responsible for what we've learned.

You are like a hurricane, there's calm in your eyes, and I'm getting blown away.

I want to live, I want to give, I've been a miner for a heart of gold.

Most people think it's the other way around: that time is going faster and we're doing less. But really time seems to be going faster because we're cramming so much into it.

True love opens the gates of time.

I don't look at a knife the way I used to. I'm more aware of what it is. I think twice. This is a key finger. It's in every chord.

It's cool to go places where working people are happy.

If you wanna write a song, ask a guitar

There is a town in north Ontario, With dream comfort memory to spare, And in my mind I still need a place to go, All my changes were there. Blue, blue windows behind the stars, Yellow moon on the rise, Big birds flying across the sky, Throwing shadows on our eyes.

I just do what I do. I like to make music

Freedom is an abstract offshoot. You can't describe freedom. How can you describe it? I tried and I failed.

You have to be ready to give everything you have, and you have to make sure you've really got a lot to give. Because if ... you're not ready to give everything you have, ... then you're nothin'.

Link Wray... He was the beginning of Grunge, way before anybody you know.

One good thing about the past is that you can't change it. So there's no reason to go back. It's there. It is what it is. The only thing you can change is right now and what's happening next.

Every junkie is like a setting sun.

The true martial artist yields to the weak, while withstanding the strong.

The thing about my music is, there really is no point.

You were born to rock, you'll never be an opera star.

You gotta keep changing. Shirts, old ladies, whatever.

And you can't get away from a mirror if you stand in front of it all the time, right. But if you step away from it, you don't notice it any more. And that's what the stage is like for me. See, an image becomes meaningless in as much as it's always temporary.

Music is fulfilling. The next day you feel better. Drugs, the next day you feel terrible -- unless you have more drugs.

People who agree with you already agree with you -- you don't change peoples minds.

Nothing is perfect in God's perfect plan.

The money needed to run for office, the money spent on lobbying by special interests, the ever increasing economic disparity and the well-funded legislative decisions all favour corporate interests over the people's.

Listen to your own voice. Don't listen to someone else's. To me the way to live is to always move forward - to keep searching for whatever it is that interests you.