Best 100 quotes of Neil Peart on MyQuotes

All four winds together can't bring the world to me Shadows cast a play of light, so much I want to see Chase the sun around the world, I want to look at life-In the Available Light. I'll go with the wind, I'll stand in the light.

All the world's indeed a stage And we are merely players Performers and portrayers Each another's audience outside the gilded cage

All this machinery making modern music can still be open-hearted. Not so boldly charted, it's really just a question of your honesty.

And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start to mold a new reality closer to the heart.

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.

A quality of justice A quantity of light A particle of mercy Makes the color of right

As crises came up later on - "Oh, we have to compromise, and the record company wants to do this," I'd be like, "No, I don't have to.

Better the pride that resides as a citizen of the world than a pride that divides when a colorful rag is unfurled

But glittering prizes and endless compromises, Shatter the illusion of integrity...

Could hell be a place where there is no self-respect? A place where people have no pride in their own existence or behavior, and thus would have none for anyone or anything else?

Courageous convictions will drag the dream into existence.

Dedicated to the future, with honor to the past.

Different hearts beat on different strings

Each of us A cell of awareness Imperfect and incomplete Genetic blends With uncertain ends On a fortune hunt that's far too fleet

Ever since I was a kid, I always wanted to play music that I liked, and even when I was in cover bands when I was a teenager we only played cover tunes that we liked. That was the simple morality that I grew up with.

Everything in moderation, with occasional excess.

Extroverts never understand introverts, and it was like that in school days. I read recently that all of us can be defined in adult life by the way others perceived us in high school.

Extroverts never understand introverts, and it was like that in school days.

For me, drum elements are like hieroglyphics - I think of a certain physical figure, and a little three-dimensional glyph will appear in my mind as I'm playing.

From first to last, the peak is never passed. Something always fires the light that gets in your eyes.

Geddy once joked, 'You're the only guy I know who rehearses to rehearse!

Half the world cries Half the world laughs Half the world tries To be the other half

Howard Roark stood as a role model for me - as exactly the way I already was living. Even at that tender age [18] I already felt that. And it was intuitive or instinctive or inbred stubbornness or whatever; but I had already made those choices and suffered for them.

How can anybody be enlightened? Truth is after all so poorly lit

I am a big fan of Dos Passos' stylistic ability, his poetic approach to prose, but the ideas presented in the songs are quite different from those which he exemplified.

I can worship Nature, and that fulfills my need for miracles and beauty. Art gives a spiritual depth to existence -- I can find worlds bigger and deeper than my own in music, paintings, and books. And from my friends and family I receive the highest benediction, emotional contact, and personal affirmation. I can bow before the works of Man, from buildings to babies, and that fulfills my need for wonder. I can believe in the sanctity of Life, and that becomes the Revealed Word, to live my life as I believe it should be, not as I'm told to by self-appointed guides.

I don't like lyrics that are just thrown together, that were obviously written as you went along, or the song was already written and the guy made up the lyrics in five minutes.

I expect if you're a professional public speaker, you probably wouldn't want to go onstage and sing and play drums.

If it's cross-country ski season, I'll be out doing that, or snowshoeing up in Quebec. In my California home, I go to the local Y and I like doing yoga. It's been hugely beneficial to me in injury avoidance.

If the future's looking dark, We're the ones who have to shine. If there's no one in control, We're the ones who draw the line. Though we live in trying times, We're the ones who have to try. And we know that time has wings, So we're the ones who have to fly.

If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

If you want something done right, just forget it.

I had spindly little ankles, and growing up in Canada, I couldn't skate. I was no good at any sports so was very much a pariah through those adolescent years.

I have come to believe that anger and grudges are burning embers in the heart.

I love jokes as much as anyone, but I don't want to hear my snail jokes every day. But I might want to hear a good song every day.

I'm a linear thinking agnostic, but not an atheist folks.

I'm less comfortable in a gregarious social situation, and you can be introverted and still share everything. It just means that you're guarded.

I'm still no good at ball-and-stick games. If I go play golf with the guys, it's intended to be a joke.

Innocence gave me confidence to go up against reality.

I read recently that all of us can be defined in adult life by the way others perceived us in high school. I know [people] who had the popular, good-looking path in high school; they tend not to do so well. It was a little bit too easy for them, where for those of us who struggled in every sense, perhaps our determination and self-reliance and discipline were reinforced by that.

I remain the optimist: you just do your best and hope for the best. But it's an evolving state of mind.

I still totally believe in individual rights and individual responsibility and in choosing to do good.

I think everything I do has Howard Roark [hero of The Fountainhead] in it, you know, as much as anything. The person I write for is Howard Roark.

It is impossible to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ and be a Republican. It's philosophically absolutely opposed - if they could only think about what they were saying for a minute. That's when you get caught up in the webs of what people call themselves and how they behave.

It's always a happy day when YYZ appears on our luggage tags.

It's interesting. I've known quite a few good athletes that can't begin to play a beat on the drum set. Most team sport is about the smooth fluidity of hand-eye coordination and physical grace, where drumming is much more about splitting all those things up.

It was actually drumming that gave me the stamina to get into sports later. I started playing drums at 13, and when I got to the international touring level... I got interested in cross-country skiing, long-distance swimming, bicycling... things that require stamina, not finesse.

It was actually drumming that gave me the stamina to get into sports later.

I want to be an improviser, and I've worked very hard at that. It's an art. You don't just play whatever comes into your head; you have to be very deliberate about what you do.

Lessons taught but never learned, all around us anger burns. Guide the future by the past. Long ago the mould was cast.