“An organism that survives well, there is really no need for consciousness in there.”

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.

We are experiencing a real confusion here in the United States, you know. Why is it OK to drink, but it’s not OK to take drugs?

The pursuit of happiness is an overview kind of thing. It’s not in the Bill of Rights.

If you go into a complete, like a cyberspace model of some type, in which… you know the discussion about the mind and the interaction between the mind and the universe as a holographic phenomenon.

For me, the lame part of the Sixties was the political part, the social part. The real part was the spiritual part.

We would all like to be able to live an uncluttered life, a simple life, a good life.

I think that America is in danger of losing its adventurous spirit in the cause of some kind of illusion of safety, or substitute of law and order there.

Nobody stopped thinking about those psychedelic experiences. Once you’ve been to some of those places, you think, ‘How can I get back there again but make it a little easier on myself?’

Nobody wants to get hurt. Nobody wants to hurt anybody. We would all like to be able to live an uncluttered life.

You listen to a politician making a speech, and it is like hearing nothing. Whereas, music is unmistakably music.