The style of music that we're playing, this progressive metal style, has always been an upstream battle for us. We don't usually get a lot of commercial exposure.

When startups succeed, they do so against all odds. In the beginning, you have nothing except for your own talents and resources. By definition, everyone else is bigger, further along, and more established than you. To win, you have to swim upstream early on - and that requires hard work and long hours. There are no shortcuts.

I can honestly say, there was a moment when I was writing 'Upstream Color' where I fell so hard for what it was becoming that I couldn't think of anything else. I was absolutely secure in this story in the way I'm rarely secure about anything else in my life.

My life is what a salmon must feel like. They are always going upstream, against the current.

You ain't supposed to get salmon when they're swimming upstream to spawn. But if you're hungry, you do.

I think we're going to the moon because it's in the nature of the human being to face challenges. It's by the nature of his deep inner soul... we're required to do these things just as salmon swim upstream.

Raw foodists are kind of paddling upstream against evolution. The only reason they can do it, and they don't all keel over, is that they are using blenders. They're very Cuisinart-dependent.

I needed to explain that Louisiana's coast accepts the drainage from two-thirds of the United States and, while the necessary levees constructed upstream have prevented floods, they have also contributed to problems downstream.

There must be an authority at the state level to coordinate flood mitigation projects in upstream watersheds. Additionally, this state entity could bring together multiple stakeholders to benefit all communities in the region.

Being an actor, you always feel like you're swimming upstream. People are going, 'No, they don't like you. They don't like the way you look. They don't like how old you are.'

I grew up in a family in which no male upstream from me had ever finished high school, much less gone to college. But I was taught that even though there was nothing I could do about what was behind me, I could change everything about what was in front of me. My working poor parents told me that I could do better.

'Upstream Color' in particular, it's got to infect culture at some level in order to have a life of its own. Then it'll be judged, and it'll either live or it won't by its own merit, and history will decide whether it's relevant however long into the future. I think that's more than enough to hope for.

Swimming upstream in the music business is a hard thing to do.

Remember, a dead fish can float downstream, but it takes a live one to swim upstream.