Top 40 Dave Matthews Quotes

When I listen to my favorite songwriters, they have such simple melodies and chords. I occasionally manage to stop at the right time, but all too often I keep on going until I have way too many notes and words. But that’s just what I do.

I don’t think everything is going to get peachy ever. But I think we have to fight for what we believe in.

Nothing is black or white, nothing’s ‘us or them.’ But then there are magical, beautiful things in the world. There’s incredible acts of kindness and bravery, and in the most unlikely places, and it gives you hope.

I do still get shocked every once in a while when I catch my reflection when I’m walking past a glass building, but it’s in my mind about getting older and finding out what I’m going to look like as it unfolds – or as it folds, depending on where the marks and scars land.

I’m familiar with that feeling of silence that comes with a very imminent catastrophe, when you know you have absolutely no control over a situation.

There’s war – there’s always been war, as long as most of us have been alive. There have always been people being abused, there’s always been horrible things in the world. Why are we outraged? We should just be quiet and figure it out, and work it out together.

I found there’s a fairly blatant racism in America that’s already there, and I don’t think I noticed it when I lived here as a kid. But when I went back to South Africa, and then it’s sort of thrust in your face, and then came back here – I just see it everywhere.

So often we talk about saving the planet, but what we really mean is to save the planet the way it is, so we can live here. So that is can sustain us.

There’s a freedom to being young that is harder to come by as time goes on.

You wear nothing but you wear it so well.

If I find something I like, I’ll chase it and see what comes out the other side. Once a song gets momentum and gets away from you, that’s a good sign.

For me, in songwriting, I have a route I can take. Maybe there’s some forks, I can go this way, this way. But I know those roads. I still have the experience behind me.

It’s a melting pot, southern Africa. You find these cultural collisions that result in art and music, and it’s pretty amazing.

I’m partly obsessed by aging gracefully.

Being able to scream at the top of my lungs in front of people is very therapeutic. It is a great gift for me to be able to do that.

Good music is good music, and everything else can go to hell.

Take what you can from your dreams, make them as real as anything.

In so many areas of life, I’m a spaz and incompetent.

I’m from a very politically and socially conscious family. My mother always made a point of making us look at what was going on around us and take stock of our part in it.

Being a white South African, I enjoyed the better things that that country gave to a small percentage of its population.

I’ve never been much of a craftsman, in an educated way. But I think just the experience of writing makes the avenues I follow a little more efficient in some ways. At the same time, when you’re young, you’re a little more fearless, and there’s less of an internal critic.

I hope that just what I sing about and how I relate to my audience is as much of a political statement as I need to make.

We give the podium to a lot of people who shouldn’t have the podium. The message that’s delivered the loudest and in the most entertaining way is the one that we’re going to put on because that’s what we want. We want ratings more than we want to deliver information. That’s just where the culture’s gotten.

I fear that our true motivation is about oil and our own flailing economy; about the failure to destroy Al Qaeda and about revenge.

I find a therapy in playing music, in many different ways.

Well, I’ve been in a few car wrecks.

The idea that we’re somehow centrally important to the planet’s existence is pretty comical – although I’d like us to be.

Success turns a lot of people off. I have a pretty solid sense of joy and respect that irritates people, and can irritate me, too.

I think I’m probably a very sad man wrapped in a very joyful package, and I think I’m very resilient, and I think I’m quite generous, sometimes to a fault. And I’m very bad with money, but I don’t see that too much of a flaw.

I don’t think socialism, and I don’t think warmness and respect are necessarily bad words.

I think we should all talk to our enemies and talk to our friends. Talk! That’s the only way we’ll find solutions.

I’ll lean on you and you lean on me and we’ll be okay.

The idea of God as a fatherly figure who looks down on us and worries about how we’re doing or takes sides when we have fights – it’s more irritating than Santa Claus. The world and the universe are far more wonderful if there’s not a puppet master.

A guy and a girl can be just friends, but at one point or another, they will fall for each other… maybe temporarily, maybe at the wrong time, maybe too late, or maybe forever.

A friend is always good to have, but a lover’s kiss is better than angels raining down on me.

I’m a bit of a caveman – I don’t go out into the digital space very often. I lie facedown on the grass and count how many bugs I can find.

The reason I play music is to touch people – for selfish reasons, as well. It feels good to make someone else feel something, whether it’s a kiss, a painting, good idea or it’s a song.

I’m a fairly tormented artist, and I’m less willing to indulge myself in self-pity, outside of songwriting.

We have to be active about kindness and about peace. I’ve always fantasized that it would be great if there was a Department of Peace.

I think I am a very kind person. I think I’m joyful, but I could be kinder and I could be more joyful. I do believe peace is a state of grace, and not the absence of violence.