Dave Matthews

Musician

1967-01-09

Quotes by Dave Matthews

• It's a melting pot, southern Africa. You find these cultural collisions that result in art and music, and it's pretty amazing.

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• When I listen to my favorite songwriters, they have such simple melodies and chords. I occasionally manage to stop at the right time, but all too often I keep on going until I have way too many notes and words. But that's just what I do.

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• South Africa gives me a perspective of what's real and what's not real. So I go back to South Africa to both lose myself and gain awareness of myself. Every time I go back, it doesn't take long for me to get caught into a very different thing. A very different sense of myself.

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• So often we talk about saving the planet, but what we really mean is to save the planet the way it is, so we can live here. So that is can sustain us. Because the planet doesn't need to be saved. It doesn't care if all the squirrels, elephants, and trees die and there's just a couple of amoebas floating around at the poles.

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• I found there's a fairly blatant racism in America that's already there, and I don't think I noticed it when I lived here as a kid. But when I went back to South Africa, and then it's sort of thrust in your face, and then came back here - I just see it everywhere.

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• I'm a fairly tormented artist, and I'm less willing to indulge myself in self-pity, outside of songwriting.

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• The reason I play music is to touch people - for selfish reasons, as well. It feels good to make someone else feel something, whether it's a kiss, a painting, good idea or it's a song.

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• I do still get shocked every once in a while when I catch my reflection when I'm walking past a glass building, but it's in my mind about getting older and finding out what I'm going to look like as it unfolds - or as it folds, depending on where the marks and scars land.

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• Nothing is black or white, nothing's 'us or them.' But then there are magical, beautiful things in the world. There's incredible acts of kindness and bravery, and in the most unlikely places, and it gives you hope.

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• The idea of God as a fatherly figure who looks down on us and worries about how we're doing or takes sides when we have fights - it's more irritating than Santa Claus. The world and the universe are far more wonderful if there's not a puppet master.

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• A guy and a girl can be just friends, but at one point or another, they will fall for each other... maybe temporarily, maybe at the wrong time, maybe too late, or maybe forever.

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• Take what you can from your dreams, make them as real as anything.

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