Quotes by Don Vliet

• Most of modern rock and roll is a product of guilt.
• That Sid Vicious was obviously a schizophrenic, kind of a mean one too.
• The stars are matter, we're matter, but it doesn't matter.
• The wind is a very difficult sound to get. It's always changing.
• When I see a dolphin, I know it's just as smart as I am.
• With my voice and my band, I can do anything.
• You can tell by the kindness of a dog how a human should be.
• Man has done a lot to make himself dangerous and animals get the worst of all of it. But then, man too is an animal.
• You can almost judge how screwed up somebody is by the kind of toilet paper they use. Go in any rich house and it's some weird coloured embossed stuff.
• I live in a Mobile Home - I've never had a house, except once; I rented a log cabin.
• An audience can really lift you right up off the stage.
• But I have been in some very beautiful churches, then I've looked outside and seen people starving to death.
• I don't do lullabyes.
• I don't even know what sound is, much less what it's for. It isn't to make money that's for sure. I've never made any.
• I don't look like a desert person because I stay indoors most of the day and fool around at night. That's what the desert animals do - they don't have a tan either.
• Bob Dylan impresses me about as much as... well, I was gonna say a slug but I like slugs.
• I have no neighbours other than animals and Joshua Trees.
• Johnny Rotten. He's a big fan of mine. I used to see him out in the audience in England and he'd stand up and holler. He's funny. Smart too, and a nice guy. Don't think he's a jerk because he isn't.
• I needed to purge myself of all the attention my parents had given me - I wasn't neglected enough as a child.
• I think most people try to get others to see through their eyes.
• I think Shakespeare is really the one. Words as music and music as words. Everything he wrote was good, which is really frightening.
• I would never kill a living thing, although I probably have inadvertently while driving automobiles.
• I'd never just want to do what everybody else did. I'd be contributing to the sameness of everything.
• I'd rather play a tune on a horn, but I've always felt that I didn't want to train myself. Because when you get a train, you've got to have an engine and a caboose. I think it's better to train the caboose. You train yourself, you strain yourself.
• I'm interested in playing, not working.
• James Brown is important because he decorates the clock correctly and he's good with lower mathematics. Don't get me wrong - he's good.
• I don't think artists are made, I think they're born.