Quotes from Jerry Garcia

If you assume you haven't learned anything yet, there's no reason your playing can't stay dynamic all your life.

You ain't gonna learn what you don't wanna know.

America is still mostly xenophobic and racist. That's the nature of America, I think.

I mean, whatever kills you kills you, and your death is authentic no matter how you die.

I have all the patience in the world about Sirens. For me it's not a Grateful Dead project, it's a Me project.

Death comes at you no matter what you do in this life, and to equate drugs with death is a facile comparison.

I don't know why, it's the same reason why you like some music and you don't like others. There's something about it that you like. Ultimately I don't find it's in my best interests to try and analyze it, since it's fundamentally emotional.

We're not uncomfortable with it, and we've already been through enough of the music business where I'm not really worried that commercial success is going to in some way - we're already past saving, you know what I mean? It's too late for us.

If we had any nerve at all, if we had any real balls as a society, or whatever you need, whatever quality you need, real character, we would make an effort to really address the wrongs in this society, righteously.

I mean, just because you're a musician doesn't mean all your ideas are about music. So every once in a while I get an idea about plumbing, I get an idea about city government, and they come the way they come.

But hey, when you live in Watts, you need a little smack to get by, you know what I mean? You need something soft and comfortable in your life, 'cause you're not going to get it from what's around you. And society isn't going to give it to you.

I think it's too bad that everybody's decided to turn on drugs, I don't think drugs are the problem. Crime is the problem. Cops are the problem. Money's the problem. But drugs are just drugs.

I'm not trying to clock scores in this lifetime, it's just that things are better now than they were like five, ten years ago. Music has gotten a lot better. There's a lot of people who are committed to - soulfully.

Every silver lining has a touch of grey.

Somebody has to do something, and it's just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us.

What's been great about the human race gives you a sense of how great you might get, how far you can reach.

You do not merely want to be considered the best of the best. You want to be considered the only ones that do what you do.

I mean, whatever kills you kills you, and your death is authentic no matter how you die.

I mean, just because you're a musician doesn't mean all your ideas are about music. So every once in a while I get an idea about plumbing, I get an idea about city government, and they come the way they come.

American society has gone completely into denial.

For me, the lame part of the Sixties was the political part, the social part. The real part was the spiritual part.

I have all the patience in the world about Sirens. For me it's not a Grateful Dead project, it's a Me project.

I don't know why, it's the same reason why you like some music and you don't like others. There's something about it that you like. Ultimately I don't find it's in my best interests to try and analyze it, since it's fundamentally emotional.

I have one custom guitar which I play almost exclusively. I have others - sometimes you want a little texture, kind of a different sound or something.