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" I developed a problem with authority. Any time that authority was what I interpreted as being unjust, I stood up to it, and that became my personality. "
Tom Petty
Authority
Problem
Time
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" My hours get kinda backwards. Most of the time, we're basing out of one town, flying out, doing the show, then flying back. And it's a pace that no one would believe, really. Unless you've done it, you really can't understand what it is. And if you're not really experienced and know how to do it, you will fall. "
Tom Petty
Time
You
Know
" There's nothing like that feeling of having just written a song that you know is 'the song,' and you know it's really great, and you can't wait to share it with people; you can't wait to record it. "
Tom Petty
You
Feeling
Great
" I feel sorry for kids these days. They get so much homework. Remember the days when we put a belt around our two books and carried them home? Now they're dragging a suitcase. They have school all day, then homework from six until eleven. There's no time left to be creative. "
Tom Petty
Time
Creative
School
" There used to be this real sense of community integrity in rock. It has really eroded. Everyone seems to be on their own now. "
Tom Petty
Integrity
Now
Own
" My family wasn't involved in the college. They were more of just your 'white trash' kind of family. And so I have that kind of background, but I always kind of aspired to be something else, and I made a lot of different friends over the years that were passing through. "
Tom Petty
Friends
College
Family
" I like to be an optimist, but I like to be a realist, too. "
Tom Petty
Too
Like
Optimist
" I think, in America, for a long time you had groups that wanted to be stars more than they wanted to make music. "
Tom Petty
Music
Think
Time
" I don't eat fish and chicken and all that. But I will have some eggs. So I'm not technically a vegan. But I eat pretty sensibly, and before a tour, I will usually work out a lot. I'll get a trainer, or I have a guy I've known a long time. "
Tom Petty
Eat
Work
Time
" In the mid-'60s, AM radio, pop radio, was just this incredible thing that played all kinds of music... You could hear Frank Sinatra right into the Yardbirds. The Beatles into Dean Martin. It was this amazing thing, and I miss it, in a way, because music has become so compartmentalized now, but in those days, it was all right in one spot. "
Tom Petty
Music
Way
Amazing
" Most things I worry about never happen anyway. "
Tom Petty
Never
Worry
Happen
" I think television's become a downright dangerous thing. It has no moral barometer whatsoever. If you want to talk about something that is all about money, just watch the television. "
Tom Petty
Money
You
Think
" I'm not exactly a guy who makes new friends easily. "
Tom Petty
New Friends
Guy
Friends
" I've been more and more into production lately, and I really, really love that. I love recording. "
Tom Petty
Been
More
Love
" I think that if people realize that with an mp3, you're only getting five percent of the sound that's there. But when you hear the entire thing... I think it would save the music business. It's such a drastic change. "
Tom Petty
Business
Change
Music
" As time goes by, you seem to weed out the things that were making your life hard. "
Tom Petty
You
Time Goes By
Weed
" I don't treat the band like I'm above them or that they're a hired hand for me. We've never worked that way. So I'm a team player. I would be very uncomfortable having to do this alone. "
Tom Petty
Alone
Treat
Way
" Rock isn't a young music anymore. I don't think it's necessarily even a youth-oriented music. "
Tom Petty
Even
Music
Rock
" When I was 15 or 16 playing in groups, we used to sit in the car and try to write the lyrics down as a song was playing, and we'd assign each person a verse, you know: 'I'm going to do the first one. You go for the second one.' And then sometimes you'd wait an hour for it to come on again so you could finish it up. "
Tom Petty
Song
Finish
Car
" When my record company rejected 'Full Moon Fever', I was hurt so bad. I was pretty far along in my career at that point. I'd never had anything rejected; I'd never really even had a comment. So when that happened, it was really just a board to the forehead. But then, finally, I picked myself up. "
Tom Petty
Myself
Moon
Hurt
" When I met Elvis, we didn't really have a conversation. I was introduced by my uncle, and he sort of grunted my way. What stays with me is the whole scene. I had never seen a real mob scene before. I was really young and impressionable. Elvis really did look - he looked sort of not real, as if he were glowing. "
Tom Petty
Look
Conversation
Uncle
" When you get older, your health becomes important to you, things start breaking down, you've always got a different ache or pain. "
Tom Petty
Health
You
Start
" The music business looks like, you know, innocent schoolboys compared to the TV business. They care about nothing but profit. "
Tom Petty
Business
Care
Innocent
" The radio has so many rules, and songs don't. You don't necessarily write to a rule book unless you're, like, just doing it professionally, which has never been my thing. "
Tom Petty
You
Radio
Never
" When I go to see people, I always kind of hope they are going to play some kind of songs I know. So you've got to know your audience. It's kind of something that is a blessing and a curse in a way. You're obligated to play some of that stuff that people know, but I don't think that's all you have to do. "
Tom Petty
Think
Hope
Know
" Making a record? You've got to have the song, then you create a record. I think it's the same with a live performance. If the material is strong, you're already 90% there. I always tell young people it's all about the music, the songs. Work on the songs, work on the songs, work on the songs. "
Tom Petty
Live
Work
Think
" When I decided to be a musician I reckoned that that was going to be the way of less profit, less money. I was sort of giving up the idea of making a lot of money. It was what I loved to do. I would have done it anyway. If I'd had to work at Taco Bell I'd have still been out at night trying to play music. "
Tom Petty
Night
Giving
Loved
" It's funny how the music industry is enraged about the Internet and the way things are copied without being paid for. But you know why people steal the music? Because they can't afford the music. "
Tom Petty
Funny
People
Internet
" Music is probably the only real magic I have encountered in my life. There's not some trick involved with it. It's pure and it's real. It moves, it heals, it communicates and does all these incredible things. "
Tom Petty
Magic
My Life
Music
" The first time I tried to write was when I was 14, after I got an electric guitar. I put a song together, and it wasn't that bad! The writing came natural to me. "
Tom Petty
Song
Writing
Bad
" TV does not care about you or what happens to you. It's downright bad for your health now, and that's not a far-out concept. I think watching the TV news is bad for you. It is bad for your physical health and your mental health. "
Tom Petty
You
Think
Mental Health