“I think that the revolution in music is over, and what’s left is a mop-up action. It’s a matter of the news getting out to everybody else.”

The Grateful Dead plays at religious services essentially.

Music is a universal language insofar as you don’t need to know anything else about a musician that you are playing with other than that they can play music.

Too much of a good thing is just about right

And when you don’t have to talk to the person next to you, that’s real clean. Takes a certain thing not to try to keep anything up, not to have to entertain one another.

I read somewhere that 77 per cent of all the mentally ill live in poverty. Actually, I’m more intrigued by the 23 per cent who are apparently doing quite well for themselves.

How many Beethovens are there that just for lack of the training, the world doesn’t get exposed to.

What’s been great about the human race gives you a sense of how great you might get, how far you can reach.

I’m goin’ where the wind don’t blow so strange, maybe off on some high cold mountain chain.

I mean, whatever kills you kills you, and your death is authentic no matter how you die.

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.

While the cameras are rolling, I rarely look directly at the actors, but focus my gaze somewhere else.

I feel the same way about all my friends. To me, the exact relationship between me and someone else doesn’t matter much. But people want to label everything… So I guess I seem indifferent in that way.

Ordinary people should have the same ability to understand art as anybody else. I don’t think art is elite or mysterious. I don’t think anybody can separate art from politics.

If artists cannot speak up for human dignity or rights, then who else will do it?

The loneliness caused by not hearing Ren’s voice… I felt it deep in the night. I felt it deeper than anyone else. Even now at times I look back.

When all else fails, read the instructions.

We experience boredom, which is nothing elses than the feeling of unease that take hold of us when our spirit is not absorbed by the mirages of life.

Don’t ever give up. Believe in yourself or no one else will.