Eddie Vedder cytaty

„Otrzymana miłość jest miłością zachowaną.”

„Zabijasz się, by oddać starą przysługę i starasz się, by ktoś cię pomścił. W ostateczności, twój koniec jest tylko akapitem w gazecie. W ostateczności, to nic nie zmienia. Świat idzie dalej a ty jesteś zapomniany. Najlepszą zemstą jest żyć dalej i sprawdzić się.”

„W Ameryce uwielbiamy się dobrze bawić. Ponieważ jesteśmy zaawansowani kulturowo… żyjemy w postępowym społeczeństwie i mamy futurystyczny sposób rozwiązywania problemów populacyjnych… po prostu dajemy każdemu pistolet do ręki i zabijamy się nawzajem.”

„Możecie mnie gnoić ile wlezie, a i tak was nie zrozumiem.”

„Jeśli nikt nie będzie krytykował Busha za zaatakowanie innych państw, on będzie jeszcze mocniej parł do wojny.”

„Nie muszę brać narkotyków, aby zmienić swoje życie w tragedię.”

„Jak ci się żyje? Może lepiej – jak traktujesz życie?”

„Mój umysł jest w tych piosenkach ale fakt, że tyle ludzi ustosunkowuje się do tych piosenek doprowadza do zastoju. Tak naprawdę, teraz rozumiem te wszystkie religijne kanały. Każdy czegoś potrzebuje.”

„Więc ilu z was wysiadło z limuzyny? To naprawdę fajne kiedy jesteś w limuzynie i możesz oprzeć swoją głowę na szybie i spoglądać na zewnątrz, na tych wszystkich bezdomnych ludzi… Później jesteście w swojej limuzynie i patrzycie na zewnątrz na ludzi śpiących na alejach… Odważcie się napić darmowego alkoholu… Ta piosenka nazywa się Even Flow.”

„Wasz śpiew jest bardzo dobry. O wiele lepszy od mojego.”

„Będzie dobrze, gdy będę mówił po angielsku? Trudno mi mówić po hiszpańsku… gdy jestem pijany.”

„Nie kochasz mnie. Nie znasz mnie. Kochasz kogoś kim myślisz, że jestem. Gdybyś znał mnie, nie kochałbyś mnie. I nie próbuj udawać, że mnie znasz, ponieważ nawet ja siebie nie znam.”

„Następna piosenka to… (długa przerwa) … to piosenka.”

„Jest taka rzecz, która nazywa się godziną policyjną i czasami grzywna wynosi bardzo dużo pieniędzy… [tłum wygwizduje] … ale rozmawialiśmy o tym na boku… Powodem tego, że mogę przyjść tu i zabierać swój własny czas jest to, że Mike McCready zgodził się płacić grzywnę dziś wieczorem.”

„Kiedy postawią cię wysoko na piedestale, niezwykle łatwo jest potem z niego spaść.”

„Jest taka wielka pogłoska, którą chciałbym zdementować teraz… nie jesteśmy z Seattle. Musiałem to powiedzieć, bo jeśli chociaż jedna osoba więcej spyta mnie znów o scenę Seattle, zwymiotuję i posikam się w tym samym momencie.”

„Ej, słuchaj gnoju, jeszcze jeden kurewski rzut jebaną ćwiartką w tę stronę i spadamy stąd. Mówię do ciebie chuju! Co jest kurwa? Rozpierdalasz sprawę każdemu tutaj. Uderz mnie kurwa jeszcze raz ćwiartką lub pierdolnij tym a mnie tu nie ma. Nas wszystkich tu nie ma! Pierdol się! I jeśli ktokolwiek zobaczy kogoś rzucającego to macie moje osobiste pozwolenie na wypierdolenie go stąd! Dziękuję bardzo. Pierdolony idiota! Ahhh… A było tak dobrze!”

„Nie tworzymy wielkiej sztuki jak Szekspir. Ale nawet dzięki naszej muzyce można coś przekazać. Zmieniłem się przez te lata. Dużo czytam, śledzę wydarzenia w Stanach i na świecie. Dzięki temu mówię dzisiaj z sensem, podczas gdy w latach ’90 było mnie stać jedynie na zawołanie typu: „Pierdolić ich wszystkich!””

„Wy pierdolone skurwysyny, wy pierdolone dziwki, wy jebane… Wiecie, że przychodzimy tu jako złożony zespół i dajemy, i dajemy a wy kurwa chcecie tylko wiecej! I wiecie co? Zasługujecie na to! To taka zainstytucjonalizowana religia.”

„Mam ochotę podziękować Bogu, w którego nie wierzę, za całą jego miłość i wsparcie.”

„Zawsze myślałem, że będę pierwszy.”

„Wielbijcie muzykę, a nie muzyków.”

„Nie czuje tego, brak mi w nim prawdziwości. W 1990 roku widziałem Public Enemy na koncercie w Los Angeles. To mogła być wielka chwila w moim życiu, ale nie była, bo muzyka nie powstawał na żywo. Tymczasem nic nie może się równać z widokiem udręki na twarzy faceta, który musi jednocześnie śpiewać i grać na gitarze.”

„Jeżeli się na coś nie zgodzisz, możesz upaść przez coś.”

„Nie ocalisz nikogo od utonięcia, jeżeli sam stąpasz po wodzie.”

„Czułem się przytłoczony tym wszystkim, co na nas spadło. W moim domu był pokój przeznaczony na pralnię, więc siedziałem tam z popielniczką, do której miałem zaufanie, bo miałem wrażenie, że to jedyne miejsce, gdzie świat nie może mnie dopaść.”

„Nie wiem, co teraz powiedziałeś, ale tu u góry zabrzmiało jak „Chcę się z tobą pieprzyć!””

“Let me be as weird as I fuckin' like. It's my fuckin' life.”

“There is a thing that happens when you are not as privileged and you start hanging out with a seedier crowd because you can afford to do the same things, […] And all of a sudden the big night out is sitting in somebody's trailer, smoking something or getting hold of something to put up to your nose.”

“I really like Chris [Cornell]'s records and I think he's the best singer that we've got on the planet. I first met Chris when I moved to Seattle, and we started hanging around. I didn't know what musicians did with their life, and I quickly realized that what he did on a Friday night was to get a 12-pack of shitty beer and chase his dog around on the mud for four hours in the forest. That was about an exciting an epiphany as I had! I haven't seen him in town for a while, but I have taken over the whole dog-chasing practice – me and my Hawaiian mutt. The beer's gotten slightly better too.”

“JG: Can I ask what your feelings are about God?
EV: Sure. I think it's like a movie that was way too popular. It's a story that's been told too many times and just doesn't mean anything. Man lived on the planet -- [placing his fingers an inch apart], this is 5000 years of semi-recorded history. And God and the Bible, that came in somewhere around the middle, maybe 2000. This is the last 2000, this is what we're about to celebrate [indicating about an 1/8th of an inch with his fingers]. Now, humans, in some shape or form, have been on the earth for three million years [pointing across the room to indicate the distance]. So, all this time, from there [gesturing toward the other side of the room], to here [indicating the 1/8th of an inch], there was no God, there was no story, there was no myth and people lived on this planet and they wandered and they gathered and they did all these things. The planet was never threatened. How did they survive for all this time without this belief in God? I'd like to ask this to someone who knows about Christianity and maybe you do. That just seems funny to me… (sic) Funny strange. Funny bad. Funny frown. Not good. That laws are made and wars occur because of this story that was written, again, in this small part of time.”

“You kill yourself and you make a big old sacrifice and try to get your revenge. That all you're gonna end up with is a paragraph in a newspaper. In the end, it does nothing. Nothing changes. The world goes on and you're gone. The best revenge is to live on and prove yourself.”

“Vedder has a variety of comments about God and/or belief, at one point he was saying, "When you're out in the desert, you can't believe the amount of stars. We've sent mechanisms out there, and they haven't found anything. They've found different colours of sand, and rings, and gasses, but nobody's shown me anything that makes me feel secure in what happens afterwards. All I really believe in is this moment, like right now."”

“It was during that same week that I was up there [In Seattle rehearsing with Pearl Jam]. Day four maybe, or day five, they did a Temple [of the Dog] rehearsal after our afternoon rehearsal. I got to watch these songs, and watch how Chris [Cornell] was working, and watch Matt [Cameron] play drums. It got to "Hunger Strike" - I was sitting in the corner, putting duck tape on a little African drum. About two-thirds of the way though, he was having to cut off the one line, and start the other. I'm not now, and certainly wasn't then, self-assured or cocky, but I could hear what he was trying to do, so I walked up to the mic - which I'm really surprised I did - and sang the other part, "Going hungry, going hungry." The next time I was up, he asked if I'd record it - so it was just me and Chris in the same studio that we made [1991's] Ten record. I really like hearing that song. I feel like I could be real proud of it - because one, I didn't write it, and two, it was such a nice way to be ushered onto vinyl for the first time. I'm indebted to Chris time eternal for being invited onto that track.”

“May 21, 1994, Melody Maker.”

“One of the first people I met outside of the group [Pearl Jam] was this next human and I had no idea how he would affect my life and my views on music and my views on friendship and what a big impact he would have. These guys [the other members of Pearl Jam] know him much longer than me and his impact is profound. I'd like to introduce with great pleasure my old neighbor, Chris Cornell.”

“I am not a good enough writer to have an agenda or come up with a message and try to put it into a song, […] It's more like you write what comes to you… You try to reflect the mood of the songs. Take 'Rearviewmirror', we start off with the music and it kinds of propels the lyrics. It made me feel like I was in a car, leaving something, a bad situation. There's an emotion there. I remembered all the times I wanted to leave…”

“"Later he tried to keep a straight face as he mockingly confessed: 'While we were away, I found God.' He rambled on about the Bible before concluding, 'We found God. He was right in our stomachs…'"
(The rambling had to do with finding a Bible in every hotel room, "Every hotel has Holy Bibles.")”

“Well, maybe it was just that I wasn't going to like anybody because I had to work and I had to explain to my teachers why I wasn't keeping up. I'd fall asleep and things in class and they'd lecture me about the reality of their classroom. I said, 'You want to see my reality?' I opened up my backpack to where you usually keep your pencils. That's where I kept my bills… electric bills, rent… That was my reality.”

“Sometimes it's hard to concentrate these days. I was thinking about the history of this building [Eventim Apollo] and the Bowie history. So I started to think about that and my mind began to wander. It's not a good…So I haven't really been talking about some things and I kind of… now it feels like it's conspicuous because I lost a really close friend of mine, somebody who…I'll say this too, I grew up as 4 boys, 4 brothers, and I lost my brother 2 years ago tragically like that in an accident and after that and losing a few other people, I'm not good at it, meaning I'm not…I have not been willing to accept the reality and that's just how I'm dealing with it (applause starts). No, no, no, no. So I want to be there for the family, be there for the community, be there for my brothers in my band, certainly the brothers in his band. But these things will take time but my friend is going to be gone forever and I will just have to…These things take time and I just want to send this out to everyone who was affected by it and they all back home and here appreciate it so deeply the support and the good thoughts of a man who was a… you know he wasn't just a friend he was someone I looked up to like my older brother. About two days after the news, I think it was the second night we were sleeping in this little cabin near the water, a place he would've loved. And all these memories started coming in about 1:30am like woke me up. Like big memories, memories I would think about all the time. Like the memories were big muscles. And then I couldn't stop the memories. And trying to sleep it was like if the neighbors had the music playing and you couldn't stop it. But then it was fine because then it got into little memories. It just kept going and going and going. And I realized how lucky I was to have hours worth of…you know if each of these memories was quick and I had hours of them. How fortunate was I?! And I didn't want to be sad, wanted to be grateful not sad. I'm still thinking about those memories and I will live with these memories in my heart and I will…love him forever.”