Quotes: My quotes are marked with an *. All others are by people who have mattered. I'd also like to include quotes by friends and acquaintances, so contact me if you think you've got something appropriate. Thanks.

My Career? Wrong ship, wrong pier, wrong ocean, wrong year.*

Catastrophe: You’ve always been a part of me. I see you in my dreams; I see you when I dream; you are my catastrophe. Jimi Hendrix

One of the tragedies of the arts is the spectacle of the vast numbers of persons who have been misled by this passing fertility to devote their lives to the effort of creation. Their invention deserts them as they grow older, and they are faced with the long years before them in which, unfitted by now for a more humdrum calling, they harass their wearied brain to beat out material it is incapable of giving them. They are lucky when, with what bitterness we know, they can make a living in ways like journalism or teaching, that are allied to the arts. Cyril Connolly

Those who can do, and those who can't teach; BUT under both, exempting cases of perceived duty or obligation, slither those who crawled into their father's business.*

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult. Seneca

It changed from being about the music to being about what you look like. And that was a terrible blow to music, because now you've got all these people who look great and can't write, sing, or play. David Crosby

Make no mistake. To be famous is to be a whore. Dare to be nobody.*

Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand. Baruch Spinoza

Four decades playing music and I still haven't figured it out; I should have taken up something easy like nuclear physics.*

I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues. Duke Ellington

Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out your horn. Charlie Parker

Do not fear mistakes — there are none. Miles Davis

My favorite song is always the last one I wrote.*

The worst thing that being an artist could do to you would be that it would make you slightly unhappy constantly. J.D. Salinger

My father once told me this: "If you can't fix it with a hammer, it can't be fixed." He was a carpenter, so I don't think he was talking about the arts. But I've heard some music, seen a few paintings, and read plenty of stories that just cried out for a 20-ounce framing hammer. Gary Marx

What moves men of genius, or rather what inspires their work, is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough. Eugène Delacroix

All the good music has already been written by people with wigs and stuff. Frank Zappa

Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance. Kurt Vonnegut

Those with the thinnest skins are those just too pumped up on themselves.*

Promise! Fatal word, half-bribe and half-threat. Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising. Cyril Connolly

If society is to preserve its stability and a degree of continuity, it must know how to keep its adolescents from imposing their tastes, attitudes, values, and fantasies on everyday life. Eric Hoffer

Approach conflict with reckless confidence, for every act of deliberated cowardice will haunt you your entire life.*

To be alive is to be aware. John Cacielles

Take your life in your own hands and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame. Erica Jong

The cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run. Henry David Thoreau

Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all GOOD, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to become the means by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of other men. Blood, whips and guns — or dollars. Take your choice — there is no other. Ayn Rand

During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. George Orwell

TV is quite possibly the most frightening and sinister invention of the 20th century — far scarier than nukes ever were.*

To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil. Theodore Dalrymple

Do not mistake my civility for acquiescence. No reality by consensus! No expertise by assignment! No authority by appointment!*

Government doesn't work. It can't deliver the mail, it doesn't keep our cities safe, its schools don't educate our children. Government programs have failed. Government reforms have failed. Democrat and Republican politicians have failed. Government doesn't work. Harry Browne

Governments will come and go hastened with each new king they try; but the heart of man ebbs onward slow whispering art will never die.*

One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time. André Gide

You must always face the who, what and where you've been. Regret, regroup and always apologize. But never fear.*

Funny thing about the word regret. It's better to regret something you have done than something you haven't. Butthole Surfers

Better to be a paranoid than a solenoid if you’re adenoids. Boss Toots

If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you. Jesus Christ, the Gospel of Thomas

There is nothing sadder than an atheist attending a funeral, except perhaps, his own.*

God is a concept by which we measure our pain. Happiness is a warm gun. John Lennon

Great improvisers are like priests. They are thinking only of their God. Stéphane Grappelli

Church is where twisted people go to lie to themselves. If there is a heaven and the people I've met who were convinced they were going there, WERE there, I'd think I was in the wrong place.*

My best advice to anyone who wants to raise a happy, mentally healthy child is: Keep him or her as far away from a church as you can. Frank Zappa

If you love God, burn a church. Jello Biafra

People with advanced degrees aren't as smart as they think they are. If you'd had any brains you would have realized that there are a lot of people out there who resent bitterly the way techno-nerds like you are changing the world and you wouldn't have been dumb enough to open an unexpected package from an unknown source. Ted Kaczynski

Computers make a hole where your brain used to be.*

Behold! A sacred voice is calling you! All over the sky a sacred voice is calling! Black Elk

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves. Carl Gustav Jung

The things we love are the handles by which the world holds us back.*

Every admirer is a potential enemy. No one can make us hate ourselves like an admirer. It may be us they wish to meet but it's themselves they want to talk about. Cyril Connolly

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits a target no one else can see. Arthur Schopenhauer

The second language of Chicagoans is sarcasm. Makes me proud to be from there.*

Three moves (household) equals a fire. George Porter

If your father or I ever catch either of you boys down by the mills (steel) we’ll kick your ass all the way home! Jack Marconi

Dreams will get you nowhere. A good kick in the pants will take you a long way. Baltasar Gracian

Every day's a holiday! Ken Peters

Everybody can be anybody, but if you want to be somebody, you have to quit acting like nobody.*

There is no more somber enemy of good art than the pram in the hall. Cyril Connolly

Most of the people you see on TV aren't. They're space aliens; they want your pod.*

If you sit on the sidelines too long watching, any game starts to appear pointless.*

You can't see the game from the concession stand. Doc Dart

Nice throw! Good play! We kinda got the whole book with that play… from Cover (Jim Coverdale, third base) to Cover (Bob Coverdale, first base). Ken Krizan

Now where was I? Nowhere was I.*

The center I cannot find is known to my unconscious mind. W.H. Auden

Gettin' old ain't for sissies. Betty Davis