Music is an attitude. It's a sensation to the average person, to the human being. And keep it simple, stupid. That's always been my theory.

You can't eat fish. It's 6,000 parts DDT per million all over the world, not counting radiation.

I grew a love for helpless, defenseless things. People would give me lions and jaguars. I had cheetahs, monkeys.

I always wanted a guitar. I always wanted to be a cowboy singer because I also listened to Hank Williams, and he would always sing these neat romantic songs.

Buddy Rich was one of the most incredible technicians in the world, on this planet, but the only people he could really impress, who knew what he was doing was another musician or another drummer.

There's a saying. If you want someone to love you forever, buy a dog, feed it and keep it around.

I used to be a mean maniac. Someone once threw a firecracker at a show and I jumped off the side of the stage and whacked 'em on the side of the head.

The kids called me King of the Surf Guitar. I surfed sunup to sundown.

My uncle gave me a trumpet, but I loved the Louis Armstrong sound and the Harry James sound and I played by ear and I played always soulful or very direct from the gut.

My philosophy is the thicker the wood the thicker the sound, the bigger the string the bigger the sound. My smallest string is a 14 gauge.

I don't play pyrotechnic scales. I play about frustration, patience, anger. Music is an extension of my soul.

I have a past, okay? And you really don't want to get involved with it.''Everybody's got a past, ' he said. 'That doesn't mean you can't have a future.

...When the government goes into the business of destroying trust, it goes into the business of destroying itself.

Intimacy blossoms anytime you let down your socially acceptable mask.

It was fun while it lasted, but it never seemed real to me. I could not believe I was in Van Halen.

Every band sells t-shirts and plays certain auditoriums, but I'm sick of being like everyone else, because I'm not.

I'm sorry your pretty little world got all screwed up, but everybody's does, and you go on. It's how you go on that defines you.

There has to be some kind of personal hygiene bar that a person needs to clear in order for a relationship to be successful.

I do not have a daily routine, but each morning, I try to spend an hour in bed, visualizing positive outcomes for my life, health, and career.

It's easy to operate under the illusion that what we are doing is so important we cannot stop doing it. ... Stopping is a spiritual act. It is the refuge where we drink life in.

Even the sad roots songs have a lot of good stories to them, and the murder ballads are good too. I mean, who doesn't like to watch a nice gory murder film on TV?