An audience can really lift you right up off the stage.
Don Van Vliet

Bob Dylan impresses me about as much as... well, I was gonna say a slug but I like slugs.
Don Van Vliet

But I have been in some very beautiful churches, then I've looked outside and seen people starving to death.
Don Van Vliet

I don't do lullabyes.
Don Van Vliet

I don't even know what sound is, much less what it's for. It isn't to make money that's for sure. I've never made any.
Don Van Vliet

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.
Don Van Vliet

I don't think artists are made, I think they're born.
Don Van Vliet

I have no neighbours other than animals and Joshua Trees.
Don Van Vliet

I live in a Mobile Home - I've never had a house, except once; I rented a log cabin.
Don Van Vliet

I needed to purge myself of all the attention my parents had given me - I wasn't neglected enough as a child.
Don Van Vliet


I think most people try to get others to see through their eyes.
Don Van Vliet

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

I would never kill a living thing, although I probably have inadvertently while driving automobiles.
Don Van Vliet

I'd never just want to do what everybody else did. I'd be contributing to the sameness of everything.
Don Van Vliet

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.
Don Van Vliet

I'm interested in playing, not working.
Don Van Vliet

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.
Don Van Vliet

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.
Don Van Vliet

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.
Don Van Vliet

Most of modern rock and roll is a product of guilt.
Don Van Vliet