Maynard James Keenan Quotes

Beliefs are dangerous. Beliefs allow the mind to stop functioning. A non-functioning mind is clinically dead. Believe in nothing.

Today's woman puts on wigs, fake eyelashes, false nails, sixteen pounds of make-up/shadows/blushes/creams, living bras, various pads that would make a linebacker envious, has implants and assorted other surgeries, then complains that she cannot find a 'real' man

A circle is the reflection of eternity. It has no beginning and it has no end - and if you put several circles over each other, then you get a spiral.

This body holding me reminds me of my own mortality. Embrace this moment, remember: we are eternal all this pain is an illusion.

Whenever you try to work through the things that we're trying to work through, that we're addressing, it ends up looking negative. Our goal is nonjudgment, nonfiltered acceptance of everything. So much of our background collectively, especially in the United States, is denying and suppressing and disowning a lot of negativity and the darker areas. You can become swallowed up in it. It's cancerous. The goal should be to define acceptance for everything. To try and consider every aspect. To try to look into the shadows, as well as the light.

This sort of behavior is left to the psychotic, dogmatic, fundamentalist believers you see on your TV everyday letting off bombs and killing people in the name of God. Beliefs are dangerous. Beliefs allow the mind to stop functioning. A non-functioning mind is clinically dead. Believe in nothing.

Put a small child in a playpen with an apple and a bunny. If s/he eats the apple and plays with the bunny, s/he's normal;but if s/he eats the bunny and plays with the apple, I'll buy you a new car. Somewhere along the line we must have been TAUGHT to do the wrong thing.

Life is too short not to create something with every breath we draw.

People have to follow their hearts, and if their hearts lead them to Wal-Mart, so be it.

So crucify the ego, before its far too late To leave behind this place so negative and blind and cynical, And you will come to find that we are all one mind Capable of all thats imagined and all conceivable. Just let the light touch you And let the words spill through And let them pass right through Bringing out our hope and reason ... before we pine away.

It's the role of us to run our government, the government by the people, for the people, and I don't think our government is listening to the people. It's our role as patriots to question them, because we elected them. And if they're not fairly and accurately representing us, it's the job of the people, the patriots, to take their country back.

Repugnant is a creature who would squander the ability To lift an eye to heaven, conscious of his fleeting time here

Desert, in generally, is a very good place to find yourself. Or lose yourself.

Once you take yourself too seriously the art will suffer.

If you take different mythologies from different cultures, the names may change and the story lines may vary but there is always something in common.

The trick is to use the drugs once to get there, and maybe spend the next ten years trying to get back there without the drug.

Cold silence has a tendency to atrophy any sense of compassion between supposed lovers

People get upset and it becomes an excuse to treat other people a certain way,but if you really step back, you realize what you've left behind.

I'm a pessimist. But I'm a pessimist with a sense of responsibility.

Just in general, any government throughout history hasn't really wanted its people to be educated, because then they couldn't control them as easily.

One of my biggest heroes in music has been David Bowie. He's said, `I'm going to be a painter now, or I'm going to do some films,' and his audience is very forgiving, because they understand him as an artist. Whether you agree or like the result, you respect that he's expressing his artistic feelings.

Finding beauty in the dissonance.

We are eternal. All this pain is an illusion.

Music is about listening, the more you play, the more the magic spreads.

I believe that music is a force in itself. It is there and it needs an outlet, a medium. In a way, we are just the medium.

I think artists are going to express things from an emotional point of view, that's their job, to suggest and interpret, and report what they witness. That's their job as artists, you're looking for the rub, where's the rub, you're a storyteller, you're looking for the rub, not necessarily the solutions, or you're not necessarily educated, you're not the winner of a debate contest, a national debate contest, you're not necessarily a person who has a doctorate in anything.

You can grow grapes in almost any part of the world. You just have to develop your palate enough to realize wine is an expression of the place where you make it. You don't have to take over the world; just be an artist and express your area.

I think that people get outraged over things. I think what we really need is a kind of borderline extinction level event to get people back to caring about what really matters.

I want to find a genie in a bottle that can grant me three wishes. I want to be able to speak, read, write, and understand any language ever written or spoken, just any language throughout the history of man. That would be one of my wishes from the genie, so I would have to put "multilingual" on the resume, should I ever find the genie.

I just hope that our fans are people who are inspired by music, and just use our music as a background or inspiration for whatever it is they do.

Recognize this as a holy gift and celebrate this chance to be alive and breathing.

Every now and then, you get people who tend to forget what this country is about, which is a melting pot of races and cultures and freedom of speech.

Because artists can be extremely eccentric and insane, and unfortunately, the people they hurt the most are the people that are closest to them.

I would hope they would be our fellow artists, rather than trying to emulate or idolize clowns like us.

There's always somebody in your life you know that just, somehow, you know, they're just that borderline sociopath that just wants what they want and doesn't care about relationships. Everybody has several of those people in their life.

Yeah, because I think it's more important just to inspire people to wake up one day and pick up a book and start feeling it out for themselves.

I think the Grammys are nothing more than some gigantic promotional machine for the music industry. They cater to a low intellect and they feed the masses. They don't honor the arts or the artist for what he created. It's the music business celebrating itself.

You really should be able to feel the higher power of music and be moved by it, rather than listening to me waffle on and having to explain it.

But you know, I'm the negative-Nancy, curmudgeon, glass-half-empty-with-a-leak-in-it guy - which is basically the fuel that fires me up anyway. Without that, we wouldn't have me.

Shows are really strange. Sometimes you really don't know what to expect

I'm not an educated man. I only know what I'm told, and I'm not told that much; I have no frame of reference for how to place things in history be a responsible leader. All I can do is be an artist.

There's conflict in everything, just trying to buy a used car you deal with people that you don't want to deal with, you know, that's just the way of life, nothing stops changing, you're always going to have the conflict till your last breath, I mean on your deathbed, arguing with the doctor who's going to pay the bill, you know, it's just the reality of it, so none of that ever goes away.

I think that every collective that you witness occurring on a stage, it's not about any one of the individuals. There's something that's happened that's kind of put all that stuff together into a much bigger result ... some alchemy.

I think there's a reason why wine figures into so many religions. There's something transcendent about it. It's sort of the way that music is more than the sum of its parts. You have all these elements that make up the terroir that wine can communicate.

I've always had an affinity for growing things.

A lot of people into Tool, for some reason, are not interested in humor.

Knuckle deep inside the borderline. This may hurt a little but it's something you'll get used to. Relax. Slip away.

Liar, lawyer, mirror show me. What’s the difference?

Because as an only child, you have your own little world.

I feel like there's no real innovation in having some music. It's more just unique personalities and unique expressions, and you being able to tell your story.