Eddie Vedder Quotes

I think music is the greatest art form that exists, and I think people listen to music for different reasons, and it serves different purposes. Some of it is background music, and some of it is things that might affect a person's day, if not their life, or change an attitude. The best songs are the ones that make you feel something.

You don't love me. If you really knew me, you wouldn't love me. You love who you think I am. And don't pretend that you know me. Because I don't even know myself.

I know I was born and I know that I'll die... The in between is mine. I Am Mine

It’s a song about first relationships and letting go. It’s very rare for a relationship to withstand the Earth’s gravitational pull and where it’s going to take people and how they’re going to grow. I’ve heard it said that you can’t really have a true love unless it was a love unrequited. It’s a harsh one, because then your truest one is the one you can’t have forever.

It's saying, just stop, and be together. Don't talk now, just breathe and feel each other's presence.

Music's at its best when it has a purpose.

I knew all the rules but the rules did not know me.

The smallest oceans still make big big waves.

You kill yourself and you make a big old sacrifice and try to get your revenge. That all you're gonna end up with is a paragraph in a newspaper. In the end, it does nothing. Nothing changes. The world goes on and you're gone. The best revenge is to live on and prove yourself.

Music saved me; I mean, my upbringing was like a hurricane, and music was the tree I held onto.

It's a mystery to me; We have a greed, with which we have agreed. You think you have to want more than you need. Until you have it all, you won't be free.

The love received is the love that is saved.

I've got my indignation but I'm pure in all my thoughts.

He who forgets will be destined to remember.

It's an art to live with pain... mix the light into gray.

I'll ride the wave, where it takes me!

Life moves fast. As much as you can learn from your history, you have to move forward.

It's the ones without scars - those are the people you have to watch out for.

I don't want to think I want to feel!

It's a mystery to me We have a greed with which we have agreed You think you have to want more than you need Until you have it all you won't be free When you want more than you have You think you need And when you think more than you want Your thoughts begin to bleed I think I need to find a bigger place 'Cause when you have more than you think You need more space Society, you're a crazy breed I hope you're not lonely without me Society, crazy and deep I hope you're not lonely without me

You know, punk bands now sell with one record - their first or second record - sell 10 times the amount of records than the Ramones did throughout their career with 20-something records. That's why I go over to Johnny Ramone's house and do yard work three times a week, just to absolve some of the guilt.

I'm probably never happier than when I'm by myself in the water. What I've worked and sacrificed for is not to be on stage playing music but to surf in some secluded place. It's a grounding element. Waves don't care who you are.

Caffeine. The gateway drug.

The best revenge is to live on and prove yourself.

I remember sitting in this pool hall with Stone and Chris and we watched - this really old, really classic pool hall - and we were sitting there and it was really rainy out and George Bush came on and started telling us about the [Gulf] war and that we were going and, and the whole thing, and there's part of that in it, when we talk about "I don't question our exsistence / I just question, our modern needs.

Society, you're a crazy breed.

I feel like we have to keep our eyes on the road. Being nostalgic is like taking an offramp and getting a sandwich - and then you get back on the highway. I don't want to be spending the rest of my life at the gas station.

Dream the dreams of other men, you'll be no ones rival.

Worship the music, not the musicians.

Darkness comes in waves...tell me, why invite it to stay?

Do you force your kids to pay attention to what's going on, or do you let them live their lives outside of it? My hope is that my child is a strong activist. That would make me most proud.

Before music videos first came out, you’d listen to a song with headphones on, sitting in a beanbag chair with your eyes closed, and you’d come up with your own visions, these things that came from within. Then all of a sudden, sometimes even the very first time you heard a song, it was with these visual images attached, and it robbed you of any form of self-expression.

You can go down the list of great artists and kind of understand that they are products of their environment. Whether it's U2 or Henry Rollins or myself or Johnny Lydon, they're gonna be products of their environment.

I'm optimistic yet disillusioned, hopeful yet frustrated.

I would do anything to be around music. You don't even have to pay me.

As far as viewpoints, I think I'm more well-rounded and definitely more educated, and probably more hopeful than I used to be. I think when you're young and you get into a cause, you get frustrated with it within a few years, or six months.

I get really worried, like if they say, 'Take vocal lessons,' or something because it's kind of like I used to really love to draw when I was a kid and then I took like an art class - because everyone said, 'Oh, you're so good, you should take a class and maybe you can be really good,' and then I went to the class and then they showed me how to use a ruler and perspective and all this stuff and it totally made me not want to do it at all.

If you're anti-war it doesn't mean you are 'Pro' one side or the other in a conflict. However, it does make you 'Pro' many thingsPro-Peace, Pro-Human, Pro-Evolution, it makes you Pro-Communication, Pro-Diplomacy, Pro-Love, Pro-Understanding, Pro-Forgiveness.

I think that if your approach is one where you don't want to alienate anybody, you're going to have to soften the viewpoint or the information that you're offering to such an extent that it doesn't have the power to make any difference. You have to take that risk.

I realized in the early days I just didn't edit at all. But I think you become a little more cagey with your lyrics when you know more people are going to hear them and make assumptions about you as a person. Realizing that, you want to be a little more opaque.

If at noon you sit down and there's just silence or blank tape, in an hour if you have a song, that didn't exist an hour ago. Now it exists and it might exist for a long time. There's something empowering about that.

I don't work so hard at trying to get every song to be three-dimensional and mean so much. I just want to breathe, right now, with the music.

Yeah, we'll play that. You want fries with that?

People on death row, the treatment of animals, women's right to choose. So much in America is based on religious fundamentalist Christianity. Grow up! This is the modern world!

Everytime I see the Spice Girls, it makes me want to try to fly by climbing my roof and strapping bricks to my shoes.

When you're out in the desert, you can't believe the amount of stars. Are you busy as a bee? Do not even have time for fun? Do your friends advise you to buy essay writing example? Do not hesitate! Come after the advice of clever men and make a correct choice! We've sent mechanisms out there, and they haven't found anything. They've found different colors of sand, and rings, and gasses, but nobody's shown me anything that makes me feel secure in what happens afterward. All I really believe in is this moment, like right now.

Gave her love away, put it in my pocket when it should of been framed!

It just seemed like I would. I mean, I didn't know him on a daily basis -- far from it. But, in a way, I don't even feel right being here without him. It's so difficult to really believe he's gone. I still talk about him like he's still here, you know. I can't figure it out. It doesn't make any sense.

I had a long talk with Bruce Springsteen on a rooftop during the Vote for Change tour (in 2004). And it boiled down to this: That guy you used to be, he’s still in the car. He’ll always be in the car. Just don’t let him drive. He might be shouting out directions. But whatever you do, don’t let him get behind the wheel.

Sometimes I hear news about the huge dollars involved with CEO pay and corporate-management salaries, and I'm mystified at how someone can justify taking that much at the cost of other people's livelihoods. In a bizarre way, I'm almost kind of curious, like "How can they absolve themselves and enjoy their wealth?" I don't understand it.