“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.”

I have always had this basic biological question in terms of evolution, if the drive to evolution is to like survive.

As long as we can play, we’ll play, regardless of what it’s for, who it’s for or anything. It’s fun for us – that’s the important thing.

You have to get past the idea that music has to be one thing.

To get really high is to forget yourself. And to forget yourself is to see everything else. And to see everything else is to become an understanding molecule in evolution, a conscious tool of the universe.

… Grateful Dead – that’s it !! … nobody in the band liked it, (the name) I didn’t like it, either, but it got around that that was one of the candidates for our new name, and everyone else said, ‘Yeah, that’s great.’

The dialect part of it comes into play, but nothing like the differentiation that language sets up, for example.

Music goes way back before language does. And music is like the key to a whole spiritual existence which this society doesn’t even talk about. We know it’s there.

Each person makes their own decision about what it is that is happening, whether they like it or don’t like it, whether they want to lend their energy to it or not or what, you know.

It turned out to be tremendously lucky. It’s just repellent enough to filter curious onlookers and just quirky enough that parents don’t like it.

Constantly choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil.

Getting high is a lot more real than listening to a politician. You can think that getting high actually did happen – that you danced, and got sweaty, and carried on. It really did happen.

It’s not enough to be the best at what you do. You must be perceived as the only one who does what you do.

Nothing left to do but smile.

I know what I’m askin’. I know it’s a lot. Just to say that I love you. Believe it or not.

In this universe the top end is light and the bottom end is real hard stuff.

I think it’s too bad that everybody’s decided to turn on drugs, I don’t think drugs are the problem.

The great thing is the thing of being able to see things through many points of view. That’s enlarging.

I’ve got a great sense of humor, and if I’m able to say or do something in a movie that people feel like they want to repeat, that’s hugely flattering.

I am not able to begin. I simply skip what should be the beginning.

I want my fans to feel like we’re always in touch. Because without ’em, I wouldn’t be able to do any of this.

I like to be able to wear something that is appropriate for wherever the day takes me: to work, on a hike and then out to dinner. I like to take the formality out of the day’s schedule and be ready for any off-road detour.

If we are to judge of love by its consequences, it more nearly resembles hatred than friendship.

As long as I’m still able to have a hit on the radio and sell a few albums and some tickets,

Anybody with ability can play in the big leagues. But to be able to trick people year in and year out the way I did, I think that was a much greater feat.