Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" When I was a kid, we didn't have any blues stations. I never heard Howlin' Wolf or Muddy Waters or any of those people until the Stones had come along, and I took it upon myself to find out who these people were that they were covering. "

Related Quotes:

" 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

" 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. "

" The great thing about the Wilburys was that none of us had to take the heat by ourselves. I was just a member of the band. Nobody felt like he was above anybody else. We had such a good time. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I would never put my songs in a commercial. "

" What I've learned about marriage: You need to have each other's back; you have to be a kind of team going through life. "

" 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. "

" The energy of the crowd is insane. Twenty thousand people. It's the biggest jolt of adrenaline. It's very hard to explain. You know the old story about the woman lifting the car off her kid? It's in that realm. You can actually hurt yourself and not know it. "

" 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. "

" It's kind of a lonely work, because you just have to keep your pole in the water. I always had a little routine of going into whatever room I was using at the time to write in and just staying in there till I felt like I got a bite. "

" We don't really make bad records, though some people might like some more than others. And we have never really done a bad show. So I think in a way maybe we've been taken for granted. "

" It's very easy to be cynical about the hall of fame. But on the other hand, it's really a beautiful thing for someone like me. I dedicated my entire life to this music. "

" 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. "

" I like to be an optimist, but I like to be a realist, too. "

Tom Petty

Too

Optimist

" When you get on the back side of your 60s, most people aren't working. "

" I tend to write on an acoustic guitar or the piano. I have kind of a rule: if I can't sit down and play this and get the song over, I don't take it to the band, because most any good song, you can sit down and deliver it with a piano or a guitar. "

" I think, in America, for a long time you had groups that wanted to be stars more than they wanted to make music. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I've never had any idea that what I like would resonate with the audience, and I'm pleasantly surprised when it does. "

Tom Petty

Audience

Idea

" I think if I'd quit years ago, I'd never have known what I was capable of doing. "

" 'Southern Accents,' I think that's one of my best, really. That would have been 1984, and I wrote that on the piano in the studio at home. I had a studio, and I just happened to be down there in the middle of the night. It was quite late, probably early morning, and I just started to play, and a song just started to appear. "

" I don't know, my music has always just come from where the wind blew me. Like where I'm at during a particular moment in time. "

Tom Petty

Moment

Know

" I have turned down a lot of money for things that would have made me feel cheesy. "

Tom Petty

Money

Down

" The music business looks like, you know, innocent schoolboys compared to the TV business. They care about nothing but profit. "

" I've been more and more into production lately, and I really, really love that. I love recording. "

Tom Petty

Been

Love

" Go after what you really love and find a way to make that work for you, and then you'll be a happy person. "

" 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. "

" There used to be this real sense of community integrity in rock. It has really eroded. Everyone seems to be on their own now. "