Neil Young Quotes

A studio, you go down the hall and see other people playing. You feel like you're in some kind of complex, like you're a soup. You're cream of mushroom and they're tomato.

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.

As soon as you start preaching, nobody wants to hear you because then you're a jerk.

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

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.

Bush has polarised the country and is creating this breeding ground for an opposition.

Could have gone under a couple of times. But not because I wasn't having fun. We were rolling pretty heavily. But we're still here; the act of survival is right here.

Earth is a flower and it's pollinating.

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

Government can't completely take care of people by making a bunch of promises and programs. Organize your communities.

How many guitar solos can you play? I've had it!

I always try to get behind the guy steering the ship. That's the kind of guy I am.

I asked myself: What does this album mean to me? It represents the fun, the frankness and the liberty of people who played together, like we did 30 years ago.

I can get away with saying a lot of ideas that are young and naive. I'm liberated.

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.

I didn't want to do the obvious thing. It didn't feel right.

I don't know if I'll find the cinnamon girl. I think I already did, but I'm still singing, who knows.

I don't like the American media-particularly Fox.

I don't like to be labeled, to be anything. I've made the mistake before myself of labeling my music, but it's counter-productive.

I don't like war. I particularly don't like the celebration of war, which I think the administration is a little bit guilty of.

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.

I don't think I'm a thorn in the industry, I'm just another part of it.

I don't think there is one president that's come down the line that hasn't done something good somewhere.

I feel like I could be likened to an old hound circling on a rug for the last five years.

I go in and sing the song and arrange it and mix it and that's it. It's no different than playing in clubs.

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.

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

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

I live for playing live. All my records are live, since After the Gold Rush, with the exception of Trans and the vocals on Landing on Water.

I think I'm going to be making country records for as long as I can see into the future. It's much more down-home and real.

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

I want to be a reflection of what's going on and let people draw their own conclusions.

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

I was just 20 years old when I wrote Broken Arrow.

I'm in a mold now, I'm kinda in a groove. I'm doing it because I love to do it, and I know how to do it, and it makes me feel good.

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

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

I've trained all my life for this race and now I'm in it.

It's a blue album, but it's not a blues album. I'm not pretending all of a sudden now I'm blues.

It's a robust time, probably the most fertile time for the underground and for revolution since Nixon. I'm talking about cultural revolution.

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

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

It's kinda like a toothpaste commercial, but there's no product.

My music isn't anything but me. It has jazz in it, and rock'n'roll, and it has an urgency to it.

Of course you have to support the troops. They're just kids. They're doing for their country what's expected of them.

People don't normally change when things are going well. But I want to see what's next and keep moving. That keeps things fresh.

Some people put down all presidents. If you say anything good about any of them, they think you're supporting everything they do.

Something comes along and you have to jump on and do it. You can't stop until it's done.

Studios are passe for me. I'd rather play in a garage, in a truck, or a rehearsal hall, a club, or a basement.

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

The Arabic states have to be integrated into the Iraqi reconstruction. We need the help of the Arabic community, which understands its culture. Americans arrive, invade, occupy.

The cutthroat avenues of rock 'n' roll, I am fed up with. I don't want anything to do with it.

The politics, I don't understand it, I'm not happy, don't feel good about it.

The rockets and the satellites, spaceships that we're creating now, we're pollinating the universe.

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

The way in which the USA and Great Britain delivered Iraq to the Iraqis, the way and means that this played out, that is the endgame.

There is a sleaze quotient to it that I think is important to balance the rest of the record.

There were some things Reagan liked that I liked. The main component was that people have to talk to each other and help themselves.

There's a lot of frustration in trying to get music out when you're the only one who hears it, especially if you have something in your head that's not normal.

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

These cultures have to be drawn out of their Culture of Doubt.

They'll probably make it unpatriotic to be Democrat. It's pretty crazy.

This thing called Patriot Act, through which we abdicated a lot of our civil rights to defend the country against terrorism, it's a four-year story.

To be rid of Saddam was good for the Iraqi people. But the manner in which it took place, I don't know if there wasn't a better way to do it. Our leaders lost patience.

To protect our freedoms, it seems we're going to have to relinquish some of our freedoms for a short period of time.

We all make up Crazy Horse, and you all are the meal ticket.

We don't build a record. We're taking a picture of it. We're not building an image; we're capturing an image.

We have to understand that people are different. I don't know, if we really understand who we're dealing with over there.

We need to spread out now in the universe. I think in 100 years we'll be living on other planets.

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

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.

When the punk thing came along and I heard my friends saying, I hate these people with the pins in their ears. I said, Thank God, something got their attention.

With a lot of songs on this record, one verse doesn't relate to the next verse. I don't think that one day really relates to the next day in life.

With Crazy Horse, it's all one big, growing, smoldering sound, and I'm part of it. It's like gliding, or some sort of natural surfing.

You know how the press is: If I mention one mistake, that's the only thing that bothers me unless I mention all the other ones.