Quotes from Flea

After running for a while, things really start to open up in your body. I felt like I'd tapped into parts of my body that I hadn't before. I let things in the universe flow through me that opened me up in a really cool way.

I love my life and my mistakes and my triumphs - all of it.

I played trumpet in the school bands. I learned things I liked to play on my trumpet, but I didn't learn why this note goes with this note and why it produces that sound. Or how to create tension in the composition.

Being a dad and being in the Red Hot Chili Peppers and all the stuff I have to do... The trumpet requires a lot of diligence, and I haven't had the time.

I started playing trumpet when I was 11 years old. All I wanted to be was a jazz trumpet player when I grew up.

Before every show, we get into a circle, hold hands, and someone makes a speech. Most bands are too cool for that.

As a musician I'm about expressing what's inside, and I think everyone has a song in them that they need to get out, whatever their gig is.

When I was in school, you could pick any instrument you want, and they'd teach you how to play it. That changed my life. I loved playing music in school, and it sent me on my path as a musician.

I'm always put in the unfortunate position of asking people to donate money and people I know in bands to play benefit concerts and all this stuff.

When I'm at home, I just run all the time, you know; I get up, and I go pretty much four days a week outdoors. I go in the canyons around L.A., Malibu - just around L.A. there's a lot of different spots.

Music is like the genius of humankind, universal... People who have never really taken the time to get into music, their lives are a lot smaller. Kids deserve the richness and dimension of it in their lives.

I got my love of jazz from my stepfather, who was a jazz musician.

I just lucked into this weird, little obscure cameoesque film career. I just love being a part of film history.

I did record a bunch of stuff, but the thing that usually stops me from doing that is that I'm a terrible singer. I made a bunch of instrumental music, and it feels really good, but just as a singer, I'm not good.

The Silverlake Conservatory is a nonprofit music school in Los Angeles where we teach music, mostly to kids, but to people of all ages - people who are old, people with beards, all kinds of people.

Running opened up something beautiful in my life. I try to send the energy all over my body. I love the feeling of it.

I went to school and studied music for a year at USC, which unlocked a bunch of doors for me in terms of my relationship to music.

When I was a kid, and it was time to go to college, I thought, 'College is for people who don't have the street smarts to make it on their own - get in a band, get in a van, and get rockin'.

Water is my main state. If I time before I run - like, to digest, like, a good hour and a half or so to digest, I'll eat oatmeal. but I'm a vegetarian for the most part, so in general, I just eat grains and vegetables and fruit.

I studied music at the most remedial level when I was a kid, through the Los Angeles public schools, with a little private instruction.

Music is made up out of these building blocks. Studying how these blocks go together and what they consist of and the math of how it works - it's all the same stuff; it's just different aesthetics that we're talking about.

I feel creatively vibrant. I have some great friends; I feel like I'm capable of giving a lot to the world. And ultimately, that's what I really care about, is just giving.

When you make music, you're forming these invisible vibrations in the air into different shapes and consistencies and speeds in order to create music, and understanding how the math of that works just gives you more colors to paint with, and allows you to get to what you want quicker.