“I Don’t Think There’s A Good Excuse For Being Unhappy. I’m Not Particularly Unhappy, But I Know What Pain Is. I think That Life Is Characterized By Pain.”

If something doesn’t work, it becomes obvious immediately. This just isn’t going to work.

The world that you can go walk outside and walk around the block. That’s reality. The reality that’s being talked about is something else entirely.

Somebody has to do something, and it’s just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us.

Playing in a group, I’m tending to think more about the music and less about the guitar. That’s just me getting older. I’m not interested in being a virtuoso guitar player or anything like that.

The satisfaction of producing a work of art is the thing of getting off on it on some level.

I mean, it saves you from ultimately from the boredom of having one point of view, like being locked in a room with nothing but your own point of view, your own references.

There’s a need for a ritual and for real joy and real bliss. Real fun.

I know when it happens. I know it when it happens every time.

If the thunder don’t get ya then the lightning will.

All I know is, if you listen to society, you’ll never get anywhere!

It’s pretty clear now that what looked like it might have been some kind of counterculture is, in reality, just the plain old chaos of undifferentiated weirdness.

For me, I think the only danger is being too much in love with guitar playing. The MUSIC is the most important thing, and the guitar is only the instrument.

And there’s a lot of that stuff with people bringing their kids, kids bringing their parents, people bringing their grandparents.

The thing I would like to be able to do is to make the music sound right no matter what it is. If somebody else wants to have a label for it, then that’s their business.

In my own musical existence I don’t feel that being a guitar player is like the best thing on earth to be. I would rather be a balanced musician.

Sometimes the lights all shining on me, other times I can barely see. Lately it occurs to me what a long strange trip it’s been.

The nationalism and the protectionism that was built into the Mexican Revolution in 1910 and that characterized the Mexican attitude to the United States for much of the 20th century were difficult to overcome. But that actually has occurred. And the cooperation.

I soak up personalities and energy. I can identify with anything because truthfully everything that makes up the world is characterized in some way in my family.