Neil Peart Quotes

If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice.

You can surrender without a prayer, but never really pray without surrender. You can fight without ever winning, but never ever win without a fight.

Adventures suck when you're having them.

You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice. If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill. I will choose a path thats clear. I will choose Freewill.

If the future's looking dark, We're the ones who have to shine. If there's no one in control, We're the ones who draw the line. Though we live in trying times, We're the ones who have to try. And we know that time has wings, So we're the ones who have to fly.

We're only immortal for a limited time.

No changes are permanent, but change is.

I can worship Nature, and that fulfills my need for miracles and beauty. Art gives a spiritual depth to existence -- I can find worlds bigger and deeper than my own in music, paintings, and books. And from my friends and family I receive the highest benediction, emotional contact, and personal affirmation. I can bow before the works of Man, from buildings to babies, and that fulfills my need for wonder. I can believe in the sanctity of Life, and that becomes the Revealed Word, to live my life as I believe it should be, not as I'm told to by self-appointed guides.

Could hell be a place where there is no self-respect? A place where people have no pride in their own existence or behavior, and thus would have none for anyone or anything else?

From the point of ignition. To the final drive. The point of the journey is not to arrive.

A spirit with a vision is a dream with a mission.

The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.

Geddy once joked, 'You're the only guy I know who rehearses to rehearse!

Half the world cries Half the world laughs Half the world tries To be the other half

You can't get wise with sleep still in your eyes no matter what your dream might be.

Each of us A cell of awareness Imperfect and incomplete Genetic blends With uncertain ends On a fortune hunt that's far too fleet

Courageous convictions will drag the dream into existence.

Half the world hates What half the world does every day Half the world waits While half gets on with it anyway

From first to last, the peak is never passed. Something always fires the light that gets in your eyes.

Your place in life is where you want to be !

The measure of a life is a measure of love and respect, So hard to earn so easily burned In the fullness of time, A garden to nurture and protect It's a measure of a life The treasure of a life is a measure of love and respect, The way you live, the gifts that you give In the fullness of time, It's the only return that you expect

Without knowing it, I had identified a subtle but important part of the healing process. There would be no peace for me, no life for me, until I learned to forgive life for what it had done to me, forgive others for still being alive, and eventually, forgive myself for being alive.

books, i think, are a different kind of time machine. instead of reminding you of a lost world, they create one for you. more personal, more intimate-unlike movies, say, the world you experience while reading a book has been lived and envisioned entirely from the INSIDE, and its contours are yours alone.

Don't try to change Doofus, let Doofus change you.

He often referred to Rush’s three members—Neil Peart, Alex Lifeson, and Geddy Lee—as “the Holy Trinity” or “the Gods of the North.

Quick to judge, quick to anger, slow to understand. Ignorance and prejudice and fear walk hand in hand.

your soul is stained with the blood of the innocent, feel their pain

A quality of justice A quantity of light A particle of mercy Makes the color of right

With people, too, you constantly think, 'If I'm nice to people and treat them well, they'll appreciate it and behave better.' They won't, but it's still not a bad way to live.

Dedicated to the future, with honor to the past.

I even felt a vicarious guilt, like a German meeting Jewish people in Poland who had never heard of the Holocaust, or that there were Jews in America, and trying to explain it to them. Ashea, I wished I could say. Ashea.

Each of us, A CEll Of Awareness... imperfect, and incomplete. Genetic blends, with uncertain ends.

You can twist perception, reality won't budge

Thoreau, “At death, our friends and relatives either draw nearer to us, and are found out, or depart farther from us, and are forgotten.

Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion; you must set yourself on fire.

Perils of solitude #1: People talk to you. I’d rather listen.

Time is a gypsy caravan Steals away in the night To leave you stranded in dreamland Distance is a long-range filter Memory a flickering light Left behind in the heartland

Just follow your front wheel.

I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them.

We can walk our road together if our goals are all the same. We can run alone and free if we pursue a different aim. Let the truth of Love be lighted. Let the love of truth shine clear. Sensibility armed with sense and liberty with the Heart and Mind united in a single perfect sphere.

excitement is found along the road, not at the end, and likewise, peace is not a fixed point-except perhaps in the unwanted "rest in peace" sense. PEACE is the breathing space between destinations, between excitements, an occasional part of the journey, if you're lucky. PEACE is a space you move through very rarely, and very briefly-but your not allowed to stay there. you have to keep moving, and go do what you do. because you can...

(Once when Buddy Rich was on the road in Michigan, he suffered a heart attack and was rushed to the hospital. As he was wheeled in on the gurney, the nurse ran alongside and asked him if he had any allergies, and Buddy growled, “Yeah — country music.”)

I had come to appreciate the long open stretches of two-lane highway across the sagey sea and mountain-studded plateau of the Great Basin, but the towns and cities were another thing. I liked the natural face of Nevada, but was not as impressed by the human face.

Everything that we were, everything we based our lives upon, everything that we believed is gone. In my journal one time, I expressed the feeling of hurt that I carry around, so similar to the feeling of being betrayed, and I concluded that I had been betrayed, by Life itself, and that’s pretty deep. So, the betrayed ones, like you and me, have to start all over again, from Absolute Zero, and construct some new version of “Life,” one that we can “live with.” No way we can hold onto what we used to believe, and no way we can forget what has actually happened in our lives, and in our worlds. We will never trust Life again.

Names are so confining. They put you in a box. I'm me, and you can see who I am. I may change later. Why would I want a name to lock me into somebody I once was?

Ignorance and prejudice and fear go hand in hand

Only a mediocre man is always at his best,

I watched a storm pass to the north, trailing veils of dark rain.

The only reason I am alive is because I could not die.

All these wounds that I can't get unwound

Spiritual yearnings are natural to many people, and may give them solace or hope, but extremists of any stripe are not content with faith as armor; they must forge it into a sword.

I saw that it was plain wrong to evaluate people according to race, for it was clear that culture was the real divider among peoples.

What a fool I used to be (The truest words I ever wrote, and they get truer every day. )

You can twist perception reality won"t budge you can raise objection I won2t be judge and jury

Big ring around moon, three or four days from full. Rain coming? Big wave every 10 seconds, sometimes like distant explosion, booming sub-bass.

You get all squeezed up inside, like the days were carved in stone. You get all wired up inside, and it's bad to be alone. You can go out, you can take a ride. And when you get out on your own, You get all smoothed out inside. And it's good to be alone.

While I remained ambitious, punctual, and hedonistic at home, I had learned to better appreciate the timeless beauties and blessings of nature, to value sincerity as a cardinal virtue and reject the Western reverence for affectation and hypocrisy, and to make my frantic life pause for sunrises, sunsets, and full moons.

There have been those who have actually said they envy me, though mostly strangers, and I doubt you’d be that short-sighted or self-absorbed. This is way more freedom than anyone should ever desire, and carries way more baggage than “freedom” can ever sustain. This is more like “desperate flight,” and another name I have for myself is “The Ghost Rider.” I’m a ghost, I carry a few ghosts with me, and I’m riding through a world that isn’t quite real. But I’m okay as long as I keep moving . . .

Rush had been Halliday’s favorite band, from his teens onward. He’d once revealed in an interview that he’d coded every single one of his videogames (including the OASIS) while listening exclusively to Rush albums. He often referred to Rush’s three members—Neil Peart, Alex Lifeson, and Geddy Lee—as “the Holy Trinity” or “the Gods of the North.

Grim faced and forbidding Their faces closed tight An angular mass of New Yorkers Pacing in rhythm Race the oncoming night They chase through the streets of Manhattan Head first humanity Pause at a light Then flow through the streets of the city They seem oblivious To a soft spring rain Like an English rain So light, yet endless From a leaden sky

Getting through Lake Tahoe was already like L.A., with construction all over the place,

You can go out, you can take a ride. And when you get out on your own, You get all smoothed out inside. And it's good to be alone...

Just because they don't hear the song (of the world) doesn't mean it's silent.

Another feature on the new bikes was something I never thought I cared about—cruise control.

fell into their open arms.

The keystone of any artistic construction is contained in that simple question, what is the intention?

It is said that pearls, being organic, become imbued with the essence of their wearer, and thus are the most personal of jewels,

I’ve read that everyone has an inner age that they think they are, regardless of their actual age. I really think of myself as being about thirty.

You know, I used to think, ‘Life is great, but people suck,’ but now I’ve had to learn the opposite, ‘Life sucks, but people are great.

That’s not hunting,” I wrote, “that’s just shooting.

...I decided I didn't want to give offense to any believers by trumpeting my "non-belief", even though they might not show me the same courtesy.

setting off,” when the world both contracts and expands at the same time.

Man, you have to admit, your future’s so bright, we don’t have to wear shades. Just rainsuits . . .

Whatever is left behind in the passing of a rare talent, so much is always lost.

-i was "far and away"-riding my motorcycle along an american back road, skiing through the snowy Quebec woods, or lying awake in a backwater motel. the theme i was grappling with was nothing less than the Meaning of Life, and i was pretty sure i had defined it: love and respect. love and respect, love and respect-i have been carrying those words around with me for two years, daring to consider that perhaps they convey the real meaning of life. beyond basic survival needs, everybody wants to be loved and respected. and neither is any good without the other. love without respect can be as cold as pity; respect without love can be as grim as fear. love and respect are the values in life that most contribute to "the pursuit of happiness"-and after, they are the greatest legacy we can leave behind. it's an elegy you'd like to hear with your own ears: "you were loved and respected." if even one person can say that about you, it's a worthy achievement, and if you can multiply that many times-well, that is true success. among materialists, a certain bumper sticker is emblematic: "he who dies with the most toys wins!" well, no-he or she who dies with the most love and respect wins... then there's love and respect for oneself-equally hard to achieve and maintain. most of us, deep down, are not as proud of ourselves as we might pretend, and the goal of bettering ourselves-at least partly by earning the love and respect of others-is a lifelong struggle. Philo of Alexandria gave us that generous principle that we have somehow succeeded in mostly ignoring for 2,000 years: "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

And me, I’ve got to start all over. Not only build a new life, but construct a new person. I call my old self “that other guy,” for I share nothing but his memories, and everything he ever liked I’ve had to discover all over again, one by one, so that I’ve held on to, for example, reading, motorcycling, and birdwatching, but I’m not yet sure about art or music (I can look at it or listen to it, but not with the same “engagement” I used to), and I have no interest in work, charity, world events, or anybody I don’t know. In my present gypsy life, I encounter a lot of people every day, and some of them I instinctively like and respond to in a brief encounter at a gas station or small-town diner, but for the most part I look around at ugly and mean-spirited people and think, “Why are you alive?

Few people associate words like serenity and tranquility with motorcycling, but some of us discover those mind-states by motoring along on our own two wheels, out in the weather and part of the scenery, on quiet roads of our choosing.

As the train rolled through the countryside, so lush and green, and into the sprawling suburbs of south London, I stared around at all the strangeness: the narrow little “terraced” houses all in rows of brick and chimneypots, the tiny back gardens with clotheslines and garden sheds, the little cars all on the wrong side of the road — it was all so delightfully foreign, and exotic. My first lesson that the rest of the world really was more different than I knew or imagined.

All preordained A prisoner in chains A victim of venomous fate Kicked in the face You can't pray for a place In heaven's unearthly estate Each of us A cell of awareness Imperfect and incomplete Genetic blends With uncertain ends On a fortune hunt that's far too fleet

Though his mind is not for rent Don't put him down as arrogant His reserve, a quiet defense Riding out the day's events What you say about his company Is what you say about society Catch the mist, catch the myth Catch the mystery, catch the drift The world is, the world is Love and life are deep Maybe as his skies are wide Today's Tom Sawyer He gets high on you And the space he invades He gets by on you No his mind is not for rent To any god or government Always hopeful, yet discontent He knows changes aren't permanent But change is What you say about his company Is what you say about society The world is, the world is Love and life are deep Maybe as his eyes are wide Exit the warrior Today's Tom Sawyer He gets high on you And the energy you trade He gets right on to the friction of the day

The songs he chose reflected that same withdrawn, private man, but this man had the gift of expressing his inner soulscape through the medium of some of the 20th century’s finest songwriters, from Rodgers and Hart to Antonio Carlos Jobim to Jimmy Webb, and as always, making those songs his own.

I remember thinking, “How does anyone survive something like this? And if they do, what kind of person comes out the other end?” I didn’t know, but throughout that dark time of grief, sorrow, desolation, and complete despair, something in me seemed determined to carry on. Something would come up.

Books, I think, are a different kind of time machine. Instead of reminding you of a lost world, they create one for you. More personal, more intimate - unlike movies, say, the world you experience while reading a book has been lived and envisioned entirely from the INSIDE, and its contours are yours alone.

At first I would be taken aback by that observation, then I would think of them seeing other drummers on television, often faking it or playing less physically demanding music, and understood why they had that impression. I guess drumming wasn't hard work for every drummer, but it certainly was for me, the way I liked to play — as hard as I could, as fast as I could, as long as I could, and as well as I could. Playing a Rush concert was the hardest job I knew, and took everything I had, mentally and physically. I once compared it to running a marathon while solving equations, and that was a good enough analogy.

One day I feel I'm on top of the world And the next it's falling in on me I can get back on I can get back on One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel, And the next it's rolling over me I can get back on I can get back on It's a far cry from the world we thought we'd inherit It's a far cry from the way we thought we'd share it

Ernest Hemingway spent his last years in Ketchum, where he is buried—under a plain flat stone next to a matching one for his fourth wife, Mary. Near the Sun Valley Lodge there’s an artful memorial, set among the trees along a stream. The inscription reads, “Best of all he loved the fall, the leaves yellow on the cottonwoods, leaves floating on the trout streams, and above the hills the high blue windless skies. Now he will be a part of them forever. Ernest Hemingway, Idaho, 1939.” The words had been written for a friend’s eulogy, but resonate well for the writer, too.    

When punk and new wave styles exploded in the late ’70s, some established artists were nimble enough to respond to the changes around them. Some grumbled, “What am I supposed to do, forget how to play?”, and continued to ride their dinosaurs into extinction, but others willingly adapted to the streamlining and back-to-basics urges of the times, without giving up all they had learned. Former Genesis singer Peter Gabriel, for example, or former Yes keyboardist Trevor Horn, continued to produce vital, influential music through the ’80s and ’90s. Ian Anderson has continued to lead Jethro Tull out of the ’60s and ’70s and quietly through the decades, making high quality music and finding a large enough audience to continue recording and touring worldwide.

A short, older man stepped up to me, sticking out his hand and saying something I couldn't hear. Thinking, "Now who's this?" I took out one of my ear monitors and said, "Sorry, I couldn't hear you." He spoke again, smiling, "Hello, I'm Charlie Watts." "Oh!" I said, taken aback, "Hello." And I shook his hand. He asked if we were going on soon, and I said yes, any minute, and he said, with a twinkle, "I'm going to watch you!" I suppose if I could have felt more pressured, that might have done it, but I was already at maximum intensity — there was no time to think of Charlie Watts and the Rolling Stones, watching them on The T.A.M.I. Show or "Ed Sullivan" when I was twelve-and-a-half, hearing "Satisfaction" snarling down the midway at Lakeside Park, Gimme Shelter at the cinema in London, listening to Charlie's beautiful solo album, Warm and Tender, so many times late at night in Quebec, or any of the other million times Charlie Watts and his band had been part of my life.

2/ KICK YOUR OWN ASS, GENTLY. I’ve been trying to set a few modest goals, both daily and weekly. In the course of a day, it’s good to get some stupid things accomplished, and off your “list.” I guess because it leaves you feeling that you and the “rest of the world” still have something to do with each other! Like today, for example, I can think back on sending a fax to my brother on his birthday, leaving a phone message for Brutus at his “hotel” on his birthday, phoning my Dad on his birthday (yep, all on the same day), then driving to Morin Heights to the ATM machine, to St. Sauveur for grocery shopping, and planning all that so I’d still have enough daylight left to go snowshoeing in the woods. And then I could drink. Not a high-pressure day, and hardly earth-shaking activities, but I laid them out for myself and did them (even though tempted to “not bother” with each of them at one point or another). I gave myself a gentle kick in the ass when necessary, or cursed myself out for a lazy fool, and because of all that, I consider today a satisfactory day. Everything that needed to be done got done. And by “needs” I certainly include taking my little baby soul out for a ride. And drinking. And there are little side benefits from such activities, like when the cashier in the grocery store wished me a genuinely-pleasant “Bonjour,” and I forced myself to look at her and return the greeting. The world still seems unreal to me, but I try not to purposely avoid contact with pleasant strangers. It wouldn’t be polite! Another “little goal” for me right now is spending an hour or two at the desk every morning, writing a letter or a fax to someone like you, or Brutus, or Danny, who I want to reach out to, or conversely, to someone I’ve been out of touch with for a long while, maybe for a year-and-a-half or two years. These are friends that I’ve decided I still value, and that I want as part of my “new life,” whatever it may be. It doesn’t really matter what, but just so you can say that you changed something in the course of your day: a neglected friend is no longer neglected; an errand that ought to be dealt with has been dealt with.

Those who know what's best for us must rise and save us from ourselves.

New Jersey

There probably are very few perfect tracks—tracks that never grow old and never cease to cause wonder. From the ’70s and ’80s, the following songs immediately spring to my mind as candidates: “The Battle of Evermore,” “Spirit of Eden,” “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed,” “Close to the Edge,” “In Your Eyes,” “Thick as a Brick,” “Cinema Show,” “Echoes,” and “The Killing Moon.

The most endangered species The honest man Will still survive annihilation Forming a world State of integrity Sensitive, open and strong

Growing up it all seems so one-sided Opinions all provided The future pre-decided Detached and subdivided In the mass production zone Nowhere is the dreamer Or the misfit so alone

From the ’70s and ’80s, the following songs immediately spring to my mind as candidates: “The Battle of Evermore,” “Spirit of Eden,” “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed,” “Close to the Edge,” “In Your Eyes,” “Thick as a Brick,” “Cinema Show,” “Echoes,” and “The Killing Moon.

No his mind is not for rent To any god or government Always hopeful, yet discontent He knows changes aren’t permanent But change is

hay farms, scrub forest, and some bald-looking areas of

If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

What is a master but a master student? And if that's true, then there's a responsibility on you to keep getting better and to explore avenues of your profession.

If the future's looking dark We're the ones who have to shine If there's no one in control We're the ones who draw the line Though we live in trying times We're the ones who have to try And we know that time has wings So we're the ones who have to fly” - from "Everyday Glory," by