Quotes from Anthony Kiedis

She had an ethereal, dreamy personality that was typified by her adamant refusal to wear her glasses despite terrible nearsightedness. I once asked her if she could see without them, and she said that things were very fuzzy. So why didn't she wear the glasses? 'I really do prefer the world unclear' she said.

The fact that my circumstances had changed drastically but my behavior hadn't was beginning to wear on me.

Suddenly we could all hear, we could all listen, and instead of being caught up in our finite little balls of bullshit, we could all become players in that great universal orchestra again.

She wasn't about to go down that road herself, which was a testament to her spiritual awakening and her commitment to sanity. It was a real blessing that she didn't follow me, because oftentimes, people go out together and one comes back and the other doesn't. Or both of them never do.

I had to sit with my senses. This clear, beautiful intuition took over. I knew exactly how I felt, and I wasn't confused or clouded or compromised. I realized that none of my feelings had diminished, but I might have to lose someone I truly loved. I didn't want to run away from Claire, but I knew drug addiction was strong enough that I had to be willing, if need be, to let go of the person I'd just fallen in love with.

If that's what you're thinking, then don't even question it. Go let your freak flag fly, brother.

for the first time in my life, a voice went off in my head:'You have no power over what happens in your life. Drugs dictate exactly what you're going to do. You've taken your hands off the steering wheel, and you're going wherever the drug world takes you.' That had never changed. The feeling would well up inside of me, and no matter how much I loved my girl or my band or my friends or my family, when that siren song 'Go get high now' started playing in my head, I was off.

When you realize that there's a name and a description for this condition that you thought was insanity, you've identified the problem, and now you can do something about it.

I had to educate him that there was no such thing as writer's block, that writers write when they write, and when they don't, they don't.

t's so lonely when you don't even know yourself.. it's so lonely.

There was an uncommon array of people in there [rehab] with me, and I became friends with all of them. You recognize the possibility of your own demise in the lives of these other people. You're doing the same thing they are, but you can't see it in yourself. However, you start seeing all of these tragedies and potential miracles in other people. It's a real eye- and heart-opening situation.

You instinctively know that nothing will ever be the same, and you have to carry that knowledge around with you like a huge weight. The next time you see your girl, you can't look her straight in the eyes the same way you did for all those years.

It was like the Wizard of Oz had spoken, and what he said was too ludicrous to take seriously.

George, we're the Red Hot Chili Peppers, we're from Hollywood, California, we're really hard-rocking motherfuckers, and we think you should produce our record.

Always, you wake up to an unpleasant memory and an unpleasant body and your spirit is reduced to a pile of dirty ashes residing somewhere inside of your ass. You've gotta face the music, which is a beautiful island outside, but you can't even bear to look out the window.

And then I realized I was high. I loved the sensation. It felt like medicine to soothe the soul and awaken the senses. There was nothing awkward or scary-I didn't feel like I had lost control-in fact, I felt like I was in control.

And we used "I love you" like an apology for the things we couldn't give each other

Having gone through it all had changed our outlooks. You can't be as much of a bitch as you were before, you can't be as much as an egomaniac, you can't feel as much like the world owed you something, you can't be the 'where's mine?' guy.

Nothing was working, and my friend was dead, and I didn't want to look at that.

I remember thinking, 'Sometimes you're riding high in April and shot down in June, but at least we have each other.' We were full of enthusiasm and color, and you could sense that something was brewing that could be amazing, but we weren't quite there yet.

I didn't have to go all the way to India for spiritual enlightenment. The blue-collar spirituality of everyday life was right in front of me, it was in every nook and cranny if I wanted to seek it, but I had chosen to ignore it.

A year jammed full of adventure and misadventure, strides forward and many steps backward, another year in my topsy-turvy, Jekyll-and-Hyde existence.

I felt I had thrown away so much in my life, but I also felt an unspoken bond between me and my city. I'd spent so much time wandering the streets of L.A. and hiking through the Hollywood Hills that I sensed there was a nonhuman entity, maybe the spirit of the hills and the city, who had me in her sights and was looking after me. Even if I was a loner in my own band, at least I still felt the presence of the city I lived in.

Those are the feelings you feel when you're out there and enough dark energy possesses you and you think, "Who the fuck am I? What happened to me?