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" We don't want to be Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones. That type of thing wasn't what we were after. It was most important for each of us to be equal in input and output - each of us has to pull the same amount, musically, in composition and in every sense of being in the band. "

Neil Peart

Important

Equal

Band

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" I expect if you're a professional public speaker, you probably wouldn't want to go onstage and sing and play drums. "

" I had spindly little ankles, and growing up in Canada, I couldn't skate. I was no good at any sports so was very much a pariah through those adolescent years. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" To me, drum soloing is like doing a marathon and solving equations at the same time. "

" The reality is that my style of drumming is largely an athletic undertaking, and it does not pain me to realize that, like all athletes, there comes a time to... take yourself out of the game. "

Neil Peart

Yourself

Time

" Stamina is the force that drives the drumming; it's not really a sprint. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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?' "

" Live shows were always religion for us. We never played a show - whether it was in front of 15 people or 15,000 - where it wasn't everything we had that night. "

" Playing a three-hour Rush show is like running a marathon while solving equations. "

" 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. "

" When Mr. Ludwig invented the bass-drum pedal, that's what made the drum set possible. "

Neil Peart

Drum

Set

" Drumming completely eclipsed my life from age 13, when I started drum lessons. Everything disappeared. I'd done well in school up until that time. I was fairly adjusted socially up until that time. And I became completely monomania, obsessed all through my teens. Nothing else existed anymore. "

" 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. "

" It seems to me that's the only way you can have a truly creative aggregate of people is if they're all contributing in different ways. "

" You have to know when you're at the top of your particular mountain, I guess. Maybe not the summit, but as high as you can go. "

" The government's only functions are to protect the rights of the individual; therefore, you need a police force and an army. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Do yourself a favor. Don't ever say to me, 'Everything happens for a reason.' "

Neil Peart

Reason

Everything

" Pure libertarianism believes that people will be generous and help each other. Well, they won't. I wish it were so, and I live that way. I help panhandlers, but other people are, 'Oh look at that - why doesn't he get a job?' While I believe in all that freedom, I also believe that no one should suffer needlessly. "

" I try not to repeat myself in fills in all the Rush songs unless it is something simple or something I feel is my own characteristic thing. "

" If drummers are 'anti-solo,' that's up to them. They're musicians, and they can play whatever they want. But my inspirations early on were people like Buddy Rich, seeing him on 'The Tonight Show', or Gene Krupa. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Even as a kid, I never wanted to be famous; I wanted to be good. "

" For me, drum elements are like hieroglyphics - I think of a certain physical figure, and a little three-dimensional glyph will appear in my mind as I'm playing. "

Neil Peart

Mind

" If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. "