Neil Young

It’s cool to go places where working people are happy.

As I get older, I get smaller. I see other parts of the world I didn’t see before. Other points of view. I see outside myself more.

One new feature or fresh take can change everything.

It’s better to burn out, than to fade away.

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.

I just do what I do. I like to make music.

I go in and sing the song and arrange it and mix it and that’s it. It’s no different than playing in clubs.

It’s better to burn out than it is to rust.

This thing called Patriot Act, through which we abdicated a lot of our civil rights to defend the country against terrorism, it’s a four-year story.

The rockets and the satellites, spaceships that we’re creating now, we’re pollinating the universe.

Earth is a flower and it’s pollinating.

Better to burn out than rust out.

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.

I was a Reagan backer. It was a shock for some people that I could agree with anything that man would say.

The cutthroat avenues of rock ‘n’ roll, I am fed up with. I don’t want anything to do with it.

As you go through life, you’ve got to see the valleys as well as the peaks.

I don’t think there is one president that’s come down the line that hasn’t done something good somewhere.

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

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.

It’s a blue album, but it’s not a blues album. I’m not pretending all of a sudden now I’m blues.

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.

Some people put down all presidents. If you say anything good about any of them, they think you’re supporting everything they do.

I don’t look at a knife the way I used to. I’m more aware of what it is. I think twice. This is a key finger. It’s in every chord.

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.

I can get away with saying a lot of ideas that are young and naive. I’m liberated.

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

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

I don’t like to be labeled, to be anything. I’ve made the mistake before myself of labeling my music, but it’s counter-productive.

I feel like I could be likened to an old hound circling on a rug for the last five years.

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.

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

The thing about my music is, there really is no point.

There’s an edge to real rock ‘n’ roll. It’s all that matters.

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.

I don’t think I’m a thorn in the industry, I’m just another part of it.

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.

I don’t like the American media – particularly Fox.

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

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

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

Commitments are one of the worst things to have in the music business. They’re very annoying.

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.

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

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.

I was just 20 years old when I wrote Broken Arrow.

I’m not into this judgmental, religious-right kind of thing.