Quotes by Neil Peart

About Neil Peart:

Neil Ellwood Peart is a Canadian-American musician and author, best known the drummer and primary lyricist for the rock band Rush. Peart has received numerous awards for his musical performances, including an induction into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1983, making him the youngest person ever so honored. He is known for his technical proficiency and stamina.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

excitement is found along the road, not at the end, and likewise, peace is not a fixed point-except perhaps in the unwanted "rest in peace" sense. PEACE is the breathing space between destinations, between excitements, an occasional part of the journ...

Neil Peart

To get nostalgic about other people's music, or even about your own, makes a terrible statement about the condition of your life and your prospects for the future. I have no patience with that kind of attitude, whether it's on radio or among friends.

Neil Peart

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.

Neil Peart

I even felt a vicarious guilt, like a German meeting Jewish people in Poland who had never heard of the Holocaust, or that there were Jews in America, and trying to explain it to them. Ashea, I wished I could say. Ashea.

Neil Peart

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 ...

Neil Peart

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

Neil Peart

If you've got a problem, take it out on a drum.

Neil Peart

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 advan...

Neil Peart

Stamina is the force that drives the drumming; it's not really a sprint.

Neil Peart

Playing a three-hour Rush show is like running a marathon while solving equations.

Neil Peart

Too much attention and hoopla doesn't agree with my temperament.

Neil Peart

Now I call myself a bleeding heart libertarian. Because I do believe in the principles of Libertarianism as an ideal - because I'm an idealist.

Neil Peart

Performing live in front of an audience is such a matter of will - all of those things you can do just fine in your basement, suddenly you have to do them in front of hundreds or thousands of people, and it becomes a different matter entirely.

Neil Peart

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.

Neil Peart

What is a master but a master student? And if that's true, then there's a responsibility on you to keep getting better and to explore avenues of your profession.

Neil Peart

People don't realize the limitations of 200 words, and the way they get chiselled down into a song that has to be sung.

Neil Peart

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

Neil Peart

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.

Neil Peart

You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice. If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill. I will choose a path thats clear. I will choose Freewill.

Neil Peart

Each of us, A CEll Of Awareness... imperfect, and incomplete. Genetic blends, with uncertain ends.

Neil Peart

Author Bio

  • NameNeil Peart
  • DescriptionCanadian-American drummer , lyricist, and author
  • BornSeptember 12, 1952
  • CountryCanada; United States Of America
  • ProfessionDrummer; Lyricist; Writer; Composer; Jazz Musician
  • AwardsOfficer Of The Order Of Canada