“Done time in the lock-up, done time on the streets. Done time on the upswing, and time in defeat.”

The thing about music is that nobody listens to it unless it’s real. I don’t think that you can fool anybody for too long in music. And you certainly can’t fool everybody.

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.

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

The result, I think, is pretty interesting … we don’t expect to make a fortune at it or ever be popular or famous or worshipped or hit The Ed Sullivan Show or the circuses or the big top.

We didn’t invent the Grateful Dead, the crowd invented the Grateful Dead.

Every silver lining has a touch of grey.

America is still mostly xenophobic and racist. That’s the nature of America, I think.

So every once in a while I get an idea about plumbing, I get an idea about city government, and they come the way they come.

There is some art that says the same thing to everybody. WE need something like that. What that is, I don’t know. But virtual reality may be the key to it.

Truth is something you stumble into when you think you’re going someplace else.

What is life but being conscious? And good and evil are manifestations of consciousness. If you reject one, you’re not getting the whole thing that’s there to be had.

Everything is traditionally slow – much faster than it ever has been on earth but still far, far too slow.

There’s a lot there to enlarge you. That’s part of the value of being in an extended family is that it enlarges you. It makes you bigger. It makes you more.

And as far as I’m concerned, it’s like I say, drugs are not the problem. Other stuff is the problem.

I’ll try any guitar just to see if it’s different in an effort to see if it will lead me anywhere.

I don’t know why, it’s the same reason why you like some music and you don’t like others. There’s something about it that you like. Ultimately I don’t find it’s in my best interests to try and analyze it, since it’s fundamentally emotional.

If men are naturally in a state of war, why do they always carry arms and why do they have keys to lock their doors?

When you happy, you get locked in sleep. You get sleepy happy. I always wanna be on point. I always wanna be aware.

Change is the key to unlocking growth.

Love can never grow old. Locks may lose their brown and gold. Cheeks may fade and hollow grow. But the hearts that love will know, never winter’s frost and chill, summer’s warmth is in them still.

Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.

Puberty was very vague. I literally locked myself in a room and played guitar.

I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse, perhaps, to be locked in.

You’re best when you’re not in charge. The ego locks the muse.