J. M. Barker Quotes

I have plenty of political views and plenty of social and personal prejudices. I do not, however, value them.

Is the noble Lord aware that, at the age of 80, there are very few pleasures left to me, but one of them is passive smoking?

I want to keep pushing the limits for drummers and expressing myself.

I learned the songs and played the gigs, and then they called me about a month later. They told me they were like super stoked on me and asked me to join their band.

Anything that has to do with rock seems to be on the decline. There's not a lot of rock stations or MTV anymore, you just go on Youtube.

Oh, I was super serious about practicing and rudiments, and still am. I still have all my books.

I play Orange County drums. I love those guys. I've got a four piece kit.

My biggest fear ever is to be involved in a plane crash, so when that happened... well, I'm just thankful to be alive! I'm just grateful to be here at all.

In 1996, I was in was in an acoustic kind of rock band, we were called Feeble. We were just playing locally.

I don't think it's possible to c-call yourself a C-Christian and... and j-just leave out the awkward bits.' -Wilfred Owen

My general rule of thumb is, once something's a ride at Disneyland, I assume that it is no longer a threat in real life. Which is why I don't expect to get attacked by a giant tea cup anytime soon.

You know the little camel on the pack of cigarettes? They just found out that's not even a camel. It's actually a horse with a big, old tumor growing out of its mouth.

I haven't even had a life I could call my own, and you're ready to slot me into the grand design. Well, I don't think I want to go. I want to be my own design.

The monsters act out our rage. They act on their worst impulses, which is appealing to a certain part of us. They get punished for it, but we've enjoyed the spectacle of their liberation.

There’s no conscious thing on the face of the world that doesn’t know dread more intimately than its own heartbeat.

We burn so hard, but we shed so little light; it makes us crazy and sad.

Leavening the flat bread of what we know, with the yeast of what we dream may come to pass.

Theology is a subject without an object

The longer I have been an atheist, the more amazed I am that I ever believed Christian notions.

Faith is not the result of fuzy thinking. It is the cause of it.

Lots of the bands [in New Orleans] couldn't read too much music. So they used a fiddle to play the lead - a fiddle player could read - and that was to give them some protection.

Only in the stillness of detachment can the soul yield up her secrets.

The first step is crucial - keep it tiny. Do not be ambitious yet. That leads to failure. Consistency is what you’re shooting for here so make the hurdle as low as possible.

As soon as you Botox your smile lines away, you lose part of your identity.

Looking straight at the world is part of your duty as a writer.

It was another nervous Tim Henman match - I'm not sure how he manages to get through them, let alone us!

I've always loved playing in bands where there's like three or four people and we're all throwing out ideas and coming together to make an album.

I try to do an hour of cardio on the days that I have off, and then I'll do 30 to 45 minutes on show days. That's the first thing I do when I wake up, I have breakfast and then I'll hit the gym.

Usually, if I'm coming to Europe, I'm on a boat for seven days, so I spend the seven days doing a bunch of things. I'll do cardio for an hour or an hour-and-a-half and weights, just light weights.

O little one, My little one, Come with me, Your life is done. Forget the future, Forget the past. Life is over: Breathe your last.

I'm thinking of switching banks, and my friend said, 'Well, what's wrong with Citibank?' Well, they can't spell 'city.' I hope their math is better than their English is.

I can't believe you're a professional golfer. I think you should be working at the snack bar.

So small, so blue, in grassy places / My flowers raise / Their tiny faces.

My life is in the art that I make, and I'm very happy with it.

It was as though in these last minutes together - when they had so much to say - they could say nothing of the least significance, for fear it open the floodgates.

I love meeting people who've read my books. The prime reason to be on the planet is to make things I can show to other people: paintings, books, movies.

But I think humans are innately religious as a species, so you don't need a specific excuse for examining the perversely unholy.

Often people who are wonderful with animals aren't always terribly good with human beings.

Not thinking critically, I assumed that the successful prayers were proof that God answers prayer while the failures were proof that there was something wrong with me.

The trouble is that neutrality is confused with hostility. We're not disrupting churches, or interrupting people's prayers. We're not fighting religion.

Only sinners need saviors.

I took about a year to fully adjust. Like there's a death at the family or a divorce, you don't just snap your fingers and it's over.

I want to beat the world record for the number of beats per second on a drum pad.

I run every day now. I never ran before.

Writing about the unholy is one way of writing about what is sacred.

We're both thieves, Harvey Swick. I take time. You take lives. But in the end we're the same: both Thieves of Always.

The sky darkened, the air grew colder, but he didn't mind. It didn't occur to him to move. This was the right place. This was where he had wanted to be.

The great grey beast February had eaten Harvey Swick alive.

I really believe that there is an enormous appetite amongst readers for an originality of vision. In other words, be true to your own dreams and there will always be people who want to hear them.

Wherever I go, I will speak of you with love.