Don Van Vliet Quotes

You can tell by the kindness of a dog how a human should be.

You can almost judge how screwed up somebody is by the kind of toilet paper they use. Go in any rich house and it’s some weird coloured embossed stuff.

With my voice and my band, I can do anything.

When I see a dolphin, I know it’s just as smart as I am.

The wind is a very difficult sound to get. It’s always changing.

The stars are matter, we’re matter, but it doesn’t matter.

That Sid Vicious was obviously a schizophrenic, kind of a mean one too.

Most of modern rock and roll is a product of guilt.

Man has done a lot to make himself dangerous and animals get the worst of all of it. But then, man too is an animal.

Johnny Rotten. He’s a big fan of mine. I used to see him out in the audience in England and he’d stand up and holler. He’s funny. Smart too, and a nice guy. Don’t think he’s a jerk because he isn’t.

James Brown is important because he decorates the clock correctly and he’s good with lower mathematics. Don’t get me wrong – he’s good.

I’m interested in playing, not working.

I’d rather play a tune on a horn, but I’ve always felt that I didn’t want to train myself. Because when you get a train, you’ve got to have an engine and a caboose. I think it’s better to train the caboose. You train yourself, you strain yourself.

I’d never just want to do what everybody else did. I’d be contributing to the sameness of everything.

I think Shakespeare is really the one. Words as music and music as words. Everything he wrote was good, which is really frightening.

I needed to purge myself of all the attention my parents had given me – I wasn’t neglected enough as a child.

I live in a Mobile Home – I’ve never had a house, except once; I rented a log cabin.

I have no neighbours other than animals and Joshua Trees.

I don’t think artists are made, I think they’re born.

I don’t look like a desert person because I stay indoors most of the day and fool around at night. That’s what the desert animals do – they don’t have a tan either.