Neil Young

Neil Young: You know how the press is: If I mention one mistake, that's the only thing that bothers me unless I mention all the other ones.

Neil Young: With Crazy Horse, it's all one big, growing, smoldering sound, and I'm part of it. It's like gliding, or some sort of natural surfing.

Neil Young: With a lot of songs on this record, one verse doesn't relate to the next verse. I don't think that one day really relates to the next day in life.

Neil Young: When the punk thing came along and I heard my friends saying, I hate these people with the pins in their ears. I said, "Thank God, something got their attention."

Neil Young: When people start asking you to do the same thing over and over again, that's when you know you're way too close to something that you don't want to be near.

Neil Young: We're very highly evolved, and we should be very responsible for what we've learned.

Neil Young: We need to spread out now in the universe. I think in 100 years we'll be living on other planets.

Neil Young: We don't build a record. We're taking a picture of it. We're not building an image; we're capturing an image.

Neil Young: To protect our freedoms, it seems we're going to have to relinquish some of our freedoms for a short period of time.

Neil Young: To be rid of Saddam was good for the Iraqi people. But the manner in which it took place, I don't know if there wasn't a better way to do it. Our leaders lost patience.

Neil Young: There's a lot of frustration in trying to get music out when you're the only one who hears it, especially if you have something in your head that's not normal.

Neil Young: There were some things Reagan liked that I liked. The main component was that people have to talk to each other and help themselves.

Neil Young: There is a sleaze quotient to it that I think is important to balance the rest of the record.

Neil Young: The '60s was one of the first times the power of music was used by a generation to bind them together.

Neil Young: Studios are passe for me. I'd rather play in a garage, in a truck, or a rehearsal hall, a club, or a basement.

Neil Young: Something comes along and you have to jump on and do it. You can't stop until it's done.

Neil Young: People don't normally change when things are going well. But I want to see what's next and keep moving. That keeps things fresh.

Neil Young: Of course you have to support the troops. They're just kids. They're doing for their country what's expected of them.

Neil Young: My music isn't anything but me. It has jazz in it, and rock'n'roll, and it has an urgency to it.

Neil Young: It's cool to go places where working people are happy.

Neil Young: I'm not into organized religion. I'm into believing in a higher source of creation, realizing we're all just part of nature.

Neil Young: I'm in a mold now, I'm kinda in a groove. I'm doing it because I love to do it, and I know how to do it, and it makes me feel good.

Neil Young: I want to be a reflection of what's going on and let people draw their own conclusions.

Neil Young: I totally have no other talent and I would be totally out of work if I did anything else.

Neil Young: I think I'm going to be making country records for as long as I can see into the future. It's much more down-home and real.

Neil Young: I just do what I do. I like to make music.

Neil Young: I just wrote one song at a time. Kinda like an alcoholic. One day at a time.

Neil Young: I live for playing live. All my records are live, since After the Gold Rush, with the exception of Trans and the vocals on Landing on Water.

Neil Young: I have so many opinions about everything it just comes out during my music. It's a battle for me. I try not to be preachy. That's a real danger.

Neil Young: I don't think I'm a thorn in the industry, I'm just another part of it.

Neil Young: I don't like war. I particularly don't like the celebration of war, which I think the administration is a little bit guilty of.

Neil Young: I don't know if I'll find the cinnamon girl. I think I already did, but I'm still singing, who knows.

Neil Young: I didn't really know what I was doing when I started. I just started writing songs. After two songs I just continued to explore it.

Neil Young: I asked myself: What does this album mean to me? It represents the fun, the frankness and the liberty of people who played together, like we did 30 years ago.

Neil Young: Could have gone under a couple of times. But not because I wasn't having fun. We were rolling pretty heavily. But we're still here; the act of survival is right here. [Talking about his career]

Neil Young: Back then people closed their eyes and listened to music. Today there's a lot of images that go with the music. A lot of music is crap and it's all commercial and the images are all trying to sell the record.

Neil Young: As you go through life, you've got to see the valleys as well as the peaks.

Neil Young: As soon as you start preaching, nobody wants to hear you because then you're a jerk. [Preaching about Life]

Neil Young: All these people talking about morality should just take a walk downtown. They don't want to go downtown because instantly they see homeless people and they don't want to.

Neil Young: A studio, you go down the hall and see other people playing. You feel like you're in some kind of complex, like you're a soup. You're cream of mushroom and they're tomato.