“If you make things sound inoffensively obvious, then it is likely that no one will listen.”

“Listen to the secret sound, the real sound, which is inside you. The one no one talks of speaks the secret sound to himself, and he is the one who has made it all.”

“Experience taught me a few things. One is to listen to your gut, no matter how good something sounds on paper. The second is that you're generally better off sticking with what you know. And the third is that sometimes your best investments are the ones you don't make.”

“The thing about having a mental breakdown is that no matter how obvious it is that you’re having one, it is somehow not obvious to you.”

“A musician is like an ear for humanity, just as a painter is like an eye for humanity. The sounds somehow exist in a different sphere, the musician listens, and brings them out for the world. There's the mystery: that someone can hear something that is essentially soundless and make it into sound.”

“You see, the thing is, I’ve been in jams like this. The feeling is totally there among the musicians (and whoever else happens to be sitting around, whether they’ve paid for it or not, probably, and preferably, not). You are close to silence, Silence with a capital S. You are in tune with silence, the deepest sound of them all. Every sound, therefore, that you make, make with intention, sensitivity, and awareness, has a meaning, an ineffability, a significance. You are listening, Listening with a capital L. You hear what everyone else is doing; you do whatever is necessary, which is usually as little as possible. It has nothing to do with self-expression: it has to do with a group mind.”

“I'm back at my cliff
still throwing things off
I listen to the sounds they make
on their way down
I follow with my eyes 'til they crash
imagine what my body would sound like slamming against those rocks
and when it lands
will my eyes
be closed or open?”

“That was the great release for me, when I saw… heard… listened to the Mini Moog. It was just this fat sound of the ring modulators, you know (imitating a moog sound). If you take a guitar, it's always the same; you just can make it more "plumm, plumm, plumm, plumm" or you can make "bwang, bwang, bwang, bwang", like Mr. Townshend does, maybe. But if you tune the volumes and the filters and the LFOs you can make millions of sounds out of it. It's incredible, you know.”

“That sounds weird: "kill yourself." It makes it sound like you tried to murder someone, only that someone is you.”

“That little, small voice in your mind and in your heart that makes you curious about being vegan is something you should listen to, because that’s the sound of your conscience making you be compassionate.”