Neil Peart Quotations | Page 2

If you want something done right, just forget it.

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.

When I'm riding my motorcycle, I'm glad to be alive. When I stop riding my motorcycle, I'm glad to be alive.

With people too, you constantly think, "If I'm nice to people and treat them well, they'll appreciate it and behave better." They won't, but it's still not a bad way to live.

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

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.

Those who know what's best for us must rise and save us from ourselves.

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.

The ones we wish could hear us have heard it all before.

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

Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep...

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

One likes to believe in the freedom of music.

More a paraphrase than a quote, really, but it comes from a prayer which was stitched into a sampler above my grandmother's bed. It began like this: 'Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep...'

Lotus-land as it appears in 'Free Will' is simply a metaphor for an idealized background, a 'land of milk and honey.' It is sometimes also used as a pejorative name for Los Angeles, though that was not in my mind when I wrote it.

There's a new reality born every minute. Unless one is a believer in predestination (in which case I'll call the prestidigitator), or other puppet-like restraints on our powers, one is free to imagine and effect changes on the world. And if enough people do it, there are big changes. These things happen. Anything can.

Like a force of nature Love can fade with the stars at dawn.

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

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

While I believe in all that freedom, I also believe that no one should suffer needlessly.

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

Let your heart be the anchor and the beat of your song.

Throw off those chains of reason and your prison disappears.

Everything in moderation, with occasional excess.

Courageous convictions will drag the dream into existence.

No one gets to their heaven without a fight.

Look in, look the storm in the eye. Look out, to the sea and the sky. Look around, at the sight and sound. Look in, look out, look around.

...but glittering prizes and endless compromises shatter the illusion of integrity.

The tarot card 'The Tower' seemed a chilling reflection of the events of September 11, 2001.

If I do something weird, play it twice and it's a new part.

Dedicated to the future, with honor to the past.

Waiting for the winds of change to sweep the clouds away. Waiting for the rainbow's end to cast its gold your way ... You don't get something for nothing. You can't have freedom for free

We're only immortal for a limited time.

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.

Don't try to change Doofus, let Doofus change you.

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

A spirit with a vision is a dream with a mission.

Living in the limelight: the universal dream for those who wish to SEEM. Those who wish to BE, must put aside the alienation, get on with the fascination, the real relation, the underlying theme.

You can't get wise with sleep still in your eyes no matter what your dream might be.

Live for yourself there's no one else more worth living for.

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

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.

You can surrender without a prayer, but never really pray without surrender. You can fight without ever winning, but never ever win without a fight.

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

No his mind is not for rent, to any god or government. Always hopeful yet discontent, he knows changes aren't permanent. But change is.

The measure of a life is a measure of love and respect, So hard to earn so easily burned In the fullness of time, A garden to nurture and protect It's a measure of a life The treasure of a life is a measure of love and respect, The way you live, the gifts that you give In the fullness of time, It's the only return that you expect

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.

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.

Quick to judge, quick to anger, slow to understand... prejudice, fear and ignorance walk hand-in-hand.

From the point of ignition. To the final drive. The point of the journey is not to arrive.

...The important thing is: if you fail once, or if your luck is bad this time, the dream is still there. A dream is only over if you give it up-or if it comes true.

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.