When I'm with Purple, I'm totally with Purple; when I'm doing my thing, I'm totally doing my own thing.

I'll hear something in my head, then eventually play it. But it's a subconscious thing. Most of the time I really don't know what I'm playing.

My first joint I smoked onstage in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I smoked my first joint live.

I have my own style, but it's different for each kind of music. There are certain little characteristic things every player has.

I can't do anything but play guitar.

You're in direct contact with the music by having the strings under your fingers. It's not mechanical like a piano.

If you're not having fun it's not worth doing.

I came in with a completely new perspective. I would write songs and they would pick tunes they felt were in the Purple vein.

I don't like English bands. They're too structured.

When you come from the Midwest, you have a more open mind than if you come from the West Coast or the East Coast.

I think the way I play the guitar is very percussive. I play a lot of rhythm chops as though I were playing congas or something.

I may die young, but at least I'll die smart.... If you can't be seven feet tall, be seven feet smart...Best advice I can ever give you.

Everybody want to experience some form of pleasure in whatever they are doing and one of the sure ways of doing that is by seeing increase in your endeavors or results

I never presumed that a technique of composition or an idea was so special that just using it would guarantee the quality of the music.

Heaven: A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you expound on yours.

If you can get by with quotes from The Godfather and nothing you say matters, that's pretty bleak, don't you think? Don't we want what we say to matter?

Every thought we think and every word we speak is an affirmation of what we believe about life and it's the same with magnetism.

I think the Beatles are a lot of people's favorite band.

So maybe part of our formal education should be training in empathy. Imagine how different the world would be if, in fact, that were 'reading, writing, arithmetic, empathy.'

I do not see a delegation for the four-footed. I see no seat for the eagles. We forget and we consider ourselves superior.

The sexual revolution produced cultural convulsions that were unparalleled in the 20th century.