Tom Petty
What I've learned about marriage: You need to have each other's back; you have to be a kind of team going through life.Collection: Marriage
I don't think it's a good attitude in your life to feel that you have to be rich to have self-esteem.Collection: Attitude
I don't eat fish and chicken and all that. But I will have some eggs. So I'm not technically a vegan. But I eat pretty sensibly, and before a tour, I will usually work out a lot. I'll get a trainer, or I have a guy I've known a long time.Collection: Work
Do something you really like, and hopefully it pays the rent. As far as I'm concerned, that's success.Collection: Success
Music is probably the only real magic I have encountered in my life. There's not some trick involved with it. It's pure and it's real. It moves, it heals, it communicates and does all these incredible things.Collection: Music
TV does not care about you or what happens to you. It's downright bad for your health now, and that's not a far-out concept. I think watching the TV news is bad for you. It is bad for your physical health and your mental health.Collection: Health
I feel sorry for kids these days. They get so much homework. Remember the days when we put a belt around our two books and carried them home? Now they're dragging a suitcase. They have school all day, then homework from six until eleven. There's no time left to be creative.Collection: Home
When my record company rejected 'Full Moon Fever', I was hurt so bad. I was pretty far along in my career at that point. I'd never had anything rejected; I'd never really even had a comment. So when that happened, it was really just a board to the forehead. But then, finally, I picked myself up.
When you get on the back side of your 60s, most people aren't working.
Most things I worry about never happen anyway.
I'm not exactly a guy who makes new friends easily.
Go after what you really love and find a way to make that work for you, and then you'll be a happy person.
I think if I'd quit years ago, I'd never have known what I was capable of doing.
If you're not getting older, you're dead.
A good song should give you a lot of images; you should be able to make your own little movie in your head to a good song.
The energy of the crowd is insane. Twenty thousand people. It's the biggest jolt of adrenaline. It's very hard to explain. You know the old story about the woman lifting the car off her kid? It's in that realm. You can actually hurt yourself and not know it.
I like to be an optimist, but I like to be a realist, too.
An average show is two hours. And that's usually right up to the curfew or the union triple time. I always feel like I could have played a little longer or something, but it's hard for me to pay attention to anything for longer than that.
'Free Fallin' is a very good song. Maybe it would be one of my favorites if it hadn't become this huge anthem. But I'm grateful that people like it.
Rock n' roll was one thing, and then they chopped off the 'roll' and called it 'rock,' which became a sort of umbrella term for anything with a guitar in it. Like hair bands. How could we possibly believe that? It's just gotten downright silly, to the point where now it's sort of become like professional wrestling.
There's nothing like that feeling of having just written a song that you know is 'the song,' and you know it's really great, and you can't wait to share it with people; you can't wait to record it.
Making a record? You've got to have the song, then you create a record. I think it's the same with a live performance. If the material is strong, you're already 90% there. I always tell young people it's all about the music, the songs. Work on the songs, work on the songs, work on the songs.
When I decided to be a musician I reckoned that that was going to be the way of less profit, less money. I was sort of giving up the idea of making a lot of money. It was what I loved to do. I would have done it anyway. If I'd had to work at Taco Bell I'd have still been out at night trying to play music.
I'm barely prolific and incredibly lazy.
I don't know, my music has always just come from where the wind blew me. Like where I'm at during a particular moment in time.
I have turned down a lot of money for things that would have made me feel cheesy.
When I met Elvis, we didn't really have a conversation. I was introduced by my uncle, and he sort of grunted my way. What stays with me is the whole scene. I had never seen a real mob scene before. I was really young and impressionable. Elvis really did look - he looked sort of not real, as if he were glowing.
I've been more and more into production lately, and I really, really love that. I love recording.
As time goes by, you seem to weed out the things that were making your life hard.
It's very easy to be cynical about the hall of fame. But on the other hand, it's really a beautiful thing for someone like me. I dedicated my entire life to this music.
I would never put my songs in a commercial.
The music business looks like, you know, innocent schoolboys compared to the TV business. They care about nothing but profit.
I think television's become a downright dangerous thing. It has no moral barometer whatsoever. If you want to talk about something that is all about money, just watch the television.
It's funny how the music industry is enraged about the Internet and the way things are copied without being paid for. But you know why people steal the music? Because they can't afford the music.
We don't really make bad records, though some people might like some more than others. And we have never really done a bad show. So I think in a way maybe we've been taken for granted.
There used to be this real sense of community integrity in rock. It has really eroded. Everyone seems to be on their own now.
I developed a problem with authority. Any time that authority was what I interpreted as being unjust, I stood up to it, and that became my personality.
The first time I tried to write was when I was 14, after I got an electric guitar. I put a song together, and it wasn't that bad! The writing came natural to me.
When I was a kid, we didn't have any blues stations. I never heard Howlin' Wolf or Muddy Waters or any of those people until the Stones had come along, and I took it upon myself to find out who these people were that they were covering.
I love history, doesn't matter what era, I'm fascinated.
You get into your late fifties, people start falling like flies all around you. I don't take life for granted any more. I'm really glad to be here.
When you get older, your health becomes important to you, things start breaking down, you've always got a different ache or pain.
I've never had any idea that what I like would resonate with the audience, and I'm pleasantly surprised when it does.
I don't treat the band like I'm above them or that they're a hired hand for me. We've never worked that way. So I'm a team player. I would be very uncomfortable having to do this alone.
I tend to write on an acoustic guitar or the piano. I have kind of a rule: if I can't sit down and play this and get the song over, I don't take it to the band, because most any good song, you can sit down and deliver it with a piano or a guitar.
I think that if people realize that with an mp3, you're only getting five percent of the sound that's there. But when you hear the entire thing... I think it would save the music business. It's such a drastic change.
When I go to see people, I always kind of hope they are going to play some kind of songs I know. So you've got to know your audience. It's kind of something that is a blessing and a curse in a way. You're obligated to play some of that stuff that people know, but I don't think that's all you have to do.
Sometimes, giving up your privacy is a little like going to the dentist and we have let him have access that no one's ever had.
The great thing about the Wilburys was that none of us had to take the heat by ourselves. I was just a member of the band. Nobody felt like he was above anybody else. We had such a good time.
I love doing my 'Buried Treasure' show.