Quotes from Eddie Vedder

Music saved me; I mean, my upbringing was like a hurricane, and music was the tree I held onto.

I wish I was the verb 'to trust' and never let you down.

The fact that we're living in a country where 90 percent of the people want further gun laws - to maybe somehow put a dent in some of this insanity that's happening - and yet there's no further legislation taking place, it's very frustrating and upsetting.

The interesting thing is that it seems like George W. Bush would have been happy being the president of anything. He could have been president of Major League Baseball.

I think the hardest thing about making music now is being a great dad at the same time. There's an insanity that goes with writing - a mad scientist thing that you have to go through - and sacrificing a kid's upbringing to do that is not an option.

If there was anything that I learned with my own writing process, maybe there's too many choices what to write about. Just the amount of subject matter in the world these days; maybe that feels chaotic for me.

I was living on the wrong side of the tracks in Evanston, Illinois, in a home for boys. We had these Jackson 5 records. I really related to their voices - they were about my age, but they were doing it.

You know, punk bands now sell with one record - their first or second record - sell 10 times the amount of records than the Ramones did throughout their career with 20-something records. That's why I go over to Johnny Ramone's house and do yard work three times a week, just to absolve some of the guilt.

You can go down the list of great artists and kind of understand that they are products of their environment. Whether it's U2 or Henry Rollins or myself or Johnny Lydon, they're gonna be products of their environment.

If I'm not on tour or in the studio, I'm in nature somewhere, usually some kind of ocean. Playing music has afforded me that. It's not lost on me that it's a tremendous opportunity to be able to spend your life being surrounded by nature.

I'm not ready to be that guy who can meet with world leaders and all that. It's tremendous what Bono does. I don't know if I could do it, not the way he does. I don't think many people could.

It's a mystery to me; We have a greed, with which we have agreed. You think you have to want more than you need. Until you have it all, you won't be free.

The best revenge is to live on and prove yourself.

Die on a hilltop... eyeing the crows... waiting for your lids to close... but you want to watch as they peck your flesh... Ironic that they go for the eyes first.

I just have this deep kind of connection to reality of being like... in a way, I feel like a dock worker. I want to stay in connection with my dock-worker side, 'cause that's how I grew up.

I'm trying to break any chain of negative parenting that I might have survived.

People say, 'How does having kids change your writing? Do you see the world through their eyes?' No - you just become a faster songwriter... In the old days, you'd be like, 'Oh I'm gonna work on this song for a few days.'

The way we're attached to our phones these days, they buzz and twitch in our pockets, and we have to look and see if it was a text, a voicemail, or an e-mail. We're almost like lab rats. I tried to eschew the whole cell phone theory until I had kids; then, I had to be reachable at all times.

With about a dozen assorted ongoing conflicts in the news every day, and with the stories becoming more horrific, the level of sadness becomes unbearable. And what becomes of our planet when that sadness becomes apathy? Because we feel helpless. And we turn our heads and turn the page.

War hurts. It hurts no matter which sides the bombs are falling on.

If you're anti-war it doesn't mean you are 'pro' one side or the other in a conflict.

Sure as I am breathing, sure as I'm sad I'll keep this wisdom in my flesh I leave here believing more than I had This love has got no ceiling

It's a crazy world, so sports and athletics and music can be a form of escapism.

There's been times when I've been standing in a line at a movie and someone's hit me with something really heavy about someone really close and how our music has helped them get through it. Even in our darkest moments we try and find something beautiful.