Neil Peart > Quotes

“If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice.”
― Neil Peart

“You can surrender without a prayer, but never really pray without surrender. You can fight without ever winning, but never ever win without a fight.”
― 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 benediction, emotional contact, and personal affirmation. I can bow before the works of Man, from buildings to babies, and that fulfills my need for wonder. I can believe in the sanctity of Life, and that becomes the Revealed Word, to live my life as I believe it should be, not as I'm told to by self-appointed guides.”
― Neil Peart, The Masked Rider: Cycling in West Africa

“If the future's looking dark,
We're the ones who have to shine.
If there's no one in control,
We're the ones who draw the line.
Though we live in trying times,
We're the ones who have to try.
And we know that time has wings,
So we're the ones who have to fly.”
― 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

“Adventures suck when you're having them.”
― Neil Peart

“We're only immortal for a limited time.”
― Neil Peart

“No changes are permanent, but change is.”
― Neil Peart

“The measure of a life is a measure of love and respect,
So hard to earn so easily burned
In the fullness of time,
A garden to nurture and protect
It's a measure of a life
The treasure of a life is a measure of love and respect,
The way you live, the gifts that you give
In the fullness of time,
It's the only return that you expect”
― Neil Peart

“From the point of ignition.
To the final drive.
The point of the journey is not to arrive.”
― Neil Peart

“The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”
― Neil Peart, Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road

“Could hell be a place where there is no self-respect? A place where people have no pride in their own existence or behavior, and thus would have none for anyone or anything else?”
― Neil Peart

“A spirit with a vision is a dream with a mission.”
― Neil Peart

“Without knowing it, I had identified a subtle but important part of the healing process. There would be no peace for me, no life for me, until I learned to forgive life for what it had done to me, forgive others for still being alive, and eventually, forgive myself for being alive.”
― Neil Peart, Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road

“Geddy once joked, 'You're the only guy I know who rehearses to rehearse!”
― Neil Peart

“Half the world cries
Half the world laughs
Half the world tries
To be the other half”
― Neil Peart

“You can't get wise with sleep still in your eyes no matter what your dream might be.”
― Neil Peart

“Courageous convictions will drag the dream into existence.”
― Neil Peart

“books, i think, are a different kind of time machine. instead of reminding you of a lost world, they create one for you. more personal, more intimate-unlike movies, say, the world you experience while reading a book has been lived and envisioned entirely from the INSIDE, and its contours are yours alone.”
― Neil Peart, Far and Away: A Prize Every Time

“Each of us
A cell of awareness
Imperfect and incomplete
Genetic blends
With uncertain ends
On a fortune hunt that's far too fleet”
― Neil Peart

“Half the world hates
What half the world does every day
Half the world waits
While half gets on with it anyway”
― Neil Peart

“From first to last, the peak is never passed. Something always fires the light that gets in your eyes.”
― Neil Peart

“Quick to judge, quick to anger, slow to understand. Ignorance and prejudice and fear walk hand in hand.”
― Neil Peart

“-i was "far and away"-riding my motorcycle along an american back road, skiing through the snowy Quebec woods, or lying awake in a backwater motel. the theme i was grappling with was nothing less than the Meaning of Life, and i was pretty sure i had defined it: love and respect.

love and respect, love and respect-i have been carrying those words around with me for two years, daring to consider that perhaps they convey the real meaning of life. beyond basic survival needs, everybody wants to be loved and respected. and neither is any good without the other. love without respect can be as cold as pity; respect without love can be as grim as fear.
love and respect are the values in life that most contribute to "the pursuit of happiness"-and after, they are the greatest legacy we can leave behind. it's an elegy you'd like to hear with your own ears: "you were loved and respected."
if even one person can say that about you, it's a worthy achievement, and if you can multiply that many times-well, that is true success.
among materialists, a certain bumper sticker is emblematic: "he who dies with the most toys wins!"
well, no-he or she who dies with the most love and respect wins...
then there's love and respect for oneself-equally hard to achieve and maintain. most of us, deep down, are not as proud of ourselves as we might pretend, and the goal of bettering ourselves-at least partly by earning the love and respect of others-is a lifelong struggle.
Philo of Alexandria gave us that generous principle that we have somehow succeeded in mostly ignoring for 2,000 years: "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
― Neil Peart, Far and Away: A Prize Every Time

“Don't try to change Doofus, let Doofus change you.”
― Neil Peart

“Everything that we were, everything we based our lives upon, everything that we believed is gone. In my journal one time, I expressed the feeling of hurt that I carry around, so similar to the feeling of being betrayed, and I concluded that I had been betrayed, by Life itself, and that’s pretty deep. So, the betrayed ones, like you and me, have to start all over again, from Absolute Zero, and construct some new version of “Life,” one that we can “live with.” No way we can hold onto what we used to believe, and no way we can forget what has actually happened in our lives, and in our worlds. We will never trust Life again.”
― Neil Peart, Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road

“your soul is stained with the blood of the innocent, feel their pain”
― Neil Peart, Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road

“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 journey, if you're lucky. PEACE is a space you move through very rarely, and very briefly-but your not allowed to stay there.
you have to keep moving, and go do what you do.
because you can...”
― Neil Peart, Far and Away: A Prize Every Time

“A quality of justice
A quantity of light
A particle of mercy
Makes the color of right”
― Neil Peart

“With people, too, you constantly think, 'If I'm nice to people and treat them well, they'll appreciate it and behave better.' They won't, but it's still not a bad way to live.”
― Neil Peart