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" Do yourself a favor. Don't ever say to me, 'Everything happens for a reason.' "
Neil Peart
Reason
Me
Everything
Related Quotes:
" It was actually drumming that gave me the stamina to get into sports later. I started playing drums at 13, and when I got to the international touring level... I got interested in cross-country skiing, long-distance swimming, bicycling... things that require stamina, not finesse. "
Neil Peart
Started
Sports
Skiing
" When I started playing, I played in R&B bands. I played James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding and all that. "
Neil Peart
Played
Started
Playing
" I am the audience. I want to observe people. Even when I'm playing drums onstage, I'm watching people. I'm looking at them and their faces and their T-shirts and their signs. And travelling by motorcycle, especially, the world is just coming at me. "
Neil Peart
Motorcycle
World
I Am
" I think, in music, you're always hoping that you'll have a like-minded audience and that the music you like making will appeal to them, too. "
Neil Peart
Always
Music
Think
" Even as a kid, I never wanted to be famous; I wanted to be good. "
Neil Peart
Good
Even
Wanted
" The thing for me about Ayn Rand is that her philosophy is the only one applicable to the world today - in every sense. If you take her ideas, then take them farther in your own mind, you can find answers to pretty well everything on an individual basis. "
Neil Peart
World
You
Ideas
" There's still a lot I'm angry about, a lot of human behaviour that's appalling and despicable, but you choose what you can fight against. I always thought if I could just put something in words perfectly enough, people would get the idea and it would change things. "
Neil Peart
Change
Words
People
" I expect if you're a professional public speaker, you probably wouldn't want to go onstage and sing and play drums. "
Neil Peart
Expect
Want
Play
" Playing a three-hour Rush show is like running a marathon while solving equations. "
Neil Peart
Playing
Running
Marathon
" If I have to travel, I'm going to travel my way and travel in the real world. And I'm going to have conversations every day with people in rest stops and people in gas stations and people in hotels and diners. That nourishes me. "
Neil Peart
Rest
World
Travel
" For me to call myself a musician, it's necessary to play live, and it rewards so much - not just in the pay cheque sense but what it does for my playing. I feel it through a tour - I feel it at the end of a tour - all that I've gathered, and especially now that I am improvising so much. "
Neil Peart
Live
Myself
Play
" I always thought if I could just put something in words perfectly enough, people would get the idea, and it would change things. That's a harmless conceit. With people, too, you constantly think, 'If I'm nice to people and treat them well, they'll appreciate it and behave better.' They won't, but it's still not a bad way to live. "
Neil Peart
People
Nice
Change
" What is a master but a master student? And if that's true, then there's a responsibility on you to keep getting better and to explore avenues of your profession. "
Neil Peart
Better
Getting Better
Responsibility
" I believe in taxation and health care that is outside the usual libertarian mandate, because I don't want people to have to suffer. It's as simple as that. "
Neil Peart
Health
Care
People
" If it's cross-country ski season, I'll be out doing that, or snowshoeing up in Quebec. In my California home, I go to the local Y and I like doing yoga. It's been hugely beneficial to me in injury avoidance. "
Neil Peart
Me
California
Home
" The Seven Cities of Gold always fascinated me. Southwestern U.S. history especially fascinates me. The whole spur of the Spanish exploration of the Southwestern U.S. was the search for these mythical Seven Cities of Gold. "
Neil Peart
Gold
History
Search
" Once, I went speeding past an old couple and smiled as I imagined their conversation: him grumbling about me and her telling him not to be such an old grouch. Then, suddenly I was in tears, thinking, 'I'll never get to be a grumpy old grandpa!' "
Neil Peart
Me
Thinking
Tears
" I've heard the stories. Like, Eric Clapton said he wanted to burn his guitar when he heard Jimi Hendrix play. I never understood that because, when I went and saw a great drummer or heard one, all I wanted to do was practice. "
Neil Peart
Play
Great
Drummer
" Our songs were not written to be listened to in headphones or on the radio. They were written to be played. All of the little infinite detail that went into the arrangements and giving ourselves lots of breathing room in terms of playing what we wanted to play and using up any ideas that we had - all of those were conceived to be performed. "
Neil Peart
Play
Ideas
Giving
" The real test of a musician is live performance. It's one thing to spend a long time learning how to play well in the studio, but to do it in front of people is what keeps me coming back to touring. "
Neil Peart
Learning
Time
People
" I'm still no good at ball-and-stick games. If I go play golf with the guys, it's intended to be a joke. "
Neil Peart
Good
Joke
Play
" The government's only functions are to protect the rights of the individual; therefore, you need a police force and an army. "
Neil Peart
Police
Army
You
" What I've learned over the years is that the craft of songwriting is trying to take the personal and make it universal - or in the case of telling a story, taking the universal and making it personal. "
Neil Peart
Over
Personal
Story
" I sang the hymns, and I read the Bible stories, but I was always perplexed, like, 'Really? Jesus wants you for a sunbeam? For a what?' "
Neil Peart
You
Stories
Jesus
" Racetracks are designed to make it as difficult as possible to get around that corner fast. And some ramps, by necessity, are that way, too. "
Neil Peart
Possible
Difficult
Corner
" Performing live in front of an audience is such a matter of will - all of those things you can do just fine in your basement, suddenly you have to do them in front of hundreds or thousands of people, and it becomes a different matter entirely. "
Neil Peart
People
Audience
Live
" To get nostalgic about other people's music, or even about your own, makes a terrible statement about the condition of your life and your prospects for the future. I have no patience with that kind of attitude, whether it's on radio or among friends. "
Neil Peart
Music
Life
Future
" If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. "
Neil Peart
You
Still
Choose
" Anytime I have an idea, I'll make sure that I put it down so that when we do sit down to write an album, I don't have to dream it all out of thin air. I don't have to be creative on the spur of the moment, or spontaneously artistic. I just take advantage of whenever creativity strikes. "
Neil Peart
Moment
Air
Creative
" I'd be very honored to be the ambassador to drum solos. "
Neil Peart
Honored
Drum
Ambassador