People say to me, 'Are you still excited when you go on tour?' Should I be excited about leaving my family? No, and no one should. It's as simple as that. If you put aside the fantasy of it, it is what it is and has to be done. And that's fine, and I pour my entire energy and enthusiasm into it, but of course, I'm of two minds about the whole idea.

Pure libertarianism believes that people will be generous and help each other. Well, they won't. I wish it were so, and I live that way. I help panhandlers, but other people are, 'Oh look at that - why doesn't he get a job?' While I believe in all that freedom, I also believe that no one should suffer needlessly.

Our songs were not written to be listened to in headphones or on the radio. They were written to be played. All of the little infinite detail that went into the arrangements and giving ourselves lots of breathing room in terms of playing what we wanted to play and using up any ideas that we had - all of those were conceived to be performed.

Anytime I have an idea, I'll make sure that I put it down so that when we do sit down to write an album, I don't have to dream it all out of thin air. I don't have to be creative on the spur of the moment, or spontaneously artistic. I just take advantage of whenever creativity strikes.

Performing live in front of an audience is such a matter of will - all of those things you can do just fine in your basement, suddenly you have to do them in front of hundreds or thousands of people, and it becomes a different matter entirely.

If I have to travel, I'm going to travel my way and travel in the real world. And I'm going to have conversations every day with people in rest stops and people in gas stations and people in hotels and diners. That nourishes me.

We don't want to be Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones. That type of thing wasn't what we were after. It was most important for each of us to be equal in input and output - each of us has to pull the same amount, musically, in composition and in every sense of being in the band.

When I was young, my ambitions were very modest. I thought, 'If only I could play at the battle of the bands at the Y, that would be the culmination of existence!' And then the roller rink, and you work your way up branch by branch.

For me to call myself a musician, it's necessary to play live, and it rewards so much - not just in the pay cheque sense but what it does for my playing. I feel it through a tour - I feel it at the end of a tour - all that I've gathered, and especially now that I am improvising so much.

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.

When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw.

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.

A good head and good heart are always a formidable combination. But when you add to that a literate tongue or pen, then you have something very special.

It always seems impossible until it's done.

Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.

For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.

Lead from the back — and let others believe they are in front.

Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.

I am not a saint, unless you think of a saint as a sinner who keeps on trying.

As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn't leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I'd still be in prison.

There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.

As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

Appearances matter — and remember to smile.

I am the captain of my soul.

A leader. . .is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.

It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.

Where you stand depends on where you sit.

One of the things I learned when I was negotiating was that until I changed myself, I could not change others.

A winner is a dreamer who never gives up

After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.

Courage is not the absence of fear — it s inspiring others to move beyond it.

A Nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but it's lowest ones

One cannot be prepared for something while secretly believing it will not happen.

You will achieve more in this world through acts of mercy than you will through acts of retribution.

Nothing is black or white.

In my country we go to prison first and then become President.

Live life as though nobody is watching, and express yourself as though everyone is listening.

There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children.

Freedom is indivisible; the chains on any one of my people were the chains on all of them, the chains on all of my people were the chains on me.

What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.

Know your enemy — and learn about his favorite sport.

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.

We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.

There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires

It is not where you start but how high you aim that matters for success.

I am not an optimist, but a great believer of hope.

Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great, you can be that generation