Tom Petty Quotes

My hours get kinda backwards. Most of the time, we’re basing out of one town, flying out, doing the show, then flying back. And it’s a pace that no one would believe, really. Unless you’ve done it, you really can’t understand what it is. And if you’re not really experienced and know how to do it, you will fall.

I like to be an optimist, but I like to be a realist, too.

We don’t really make bad records, though some people might like some more than others. And we have never really done a bad show. So I think in a way maybe we’ve been taken for granted.

Rock n’ roll was one thing, and then they chopped off the ‘roll’ and called it ‘rock,’ which became a sort of umbrella term for anything with a guitar in it. Like hair bands. How could we possibly believe that? It’s just gotten downright silly, to the point where now it’s sort of become like professional wrestling.

I don’t think it’s a good attitude in your life to feel that you have to be rich to have self-esteem.

I think watching the TV news is bad for you. It is bad for your physical health and your mental health.

I think if I’d quit years ago, I’d never have known what I was capable of doing.

I think, in America, for a long time you had groups that wanted to be stars more than they wanted to make music.

I think television’s become a downright dangerous thing. It has no moral barometer whatsoever. If you want to talk about something that is all about money, just watch the television.

It’s hard for me… If I don’t have a project going, I don’t feel like I’m connected to anything. I don’t even think it’s that healthy for me. I like to get out of bed and have a purpose.

I tend to write on an acoustic guitar or the piano. I have kind of a rule: if I can’t sit down and play this and get the song over, I don’t take it to the band, because most any good song, you can sit down and deliver it with a piano or a guitar.

I could come home, and I would spend the rest of the night just lying on the floor or the sofa listening to albums. It was like a movie to me. I still do, really, and doing the radio show ensures that I’ll be sitting there listening.

As time goes by, you seem to weed out the things that were making your life hard.

When I decided to be a musician I reckoned that that was going to be the way of less profit, less money. I was sort of giving up the idea of making a lot of money. It was what I loved to do. I would have done it anyway. If I’d had to work at Taco Bell I’d have still been out at night trying to play music.