Once I was playing and moving around and I fell right on my back. Just straight on my back. It was the most embarrassing moment of my life.

I'll hear something in my head, then eventually play it. But it's a subconscious thing. Most of the time I really don't know what I'm playing.

My first joint I smoked onstage in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I smoked my first joint live.

When I'm with Purple, I'm totally with Purple; when I'm doing my thing, I'm totally doing my own thing.

I have my own style, but it's different for each kind of music. There are certain little characteristic things every player has.

I can't do anything but play guitar.

You're in direct contact with the music by having the strings under your fingers. It's not mechanical like a piano.

If you're not having fun it's not worth doing.

I came in with a completely new perspective. I would write songs and they would pick tunes they felt were in the Purple vein.

I don't like English bands. They're too structured.

When you come from the Midwest, you have a more open mind than if you come from the West Coast or the East Coast.

If you want to live a creative life, get efficient at failing.

The first step to solving any problem is to accept one’s own accountability for creating it.

It's hard to make music knowing that it's not going to be received by the listener in the way that it should be.

I used to love hand raising.

Stress is the worst thing. That's the ultimate demise of any good thing.

Where did this commandment come from in relation to polygamy? It also came from God... When I see any of our people, men or women, opposing a principle of this kind... I consider them apostates.

Most of my life wasn't about knowledge from books, but experiential knowledge.

Never mind these failures, these little backslidings; hold the ideal a thousand times, and if you fail a thousand times, make the attempt once more.

Smile doesn't mean that someone is happy. Sometimes it just means that you're strong.