Top 193 Quotes & Sayings by Dave Matthews
Explore popular quotes and sayings by a South African musician Dave Matthews.
Last updated on December 23, 2024.
We've never played at this place before. This place is big, and I'm kinda nervous, so we're going to make it feel small by pretending we're in a... bedroom. We'll hang off the edge of the bed, take off our shoes and get naked!
I can't believe that we would lie in our graves wondering if we had spent our living days well. I can't believe that we would lie in our graves dreaming of things that we might have been.
My songs are like a three-legged dog - you have to get to know them to have any love for them.
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.
Success turns a lot of people off. I have a pretty solid sense of joy and respect that irritates people, and can irritate me, too.
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.
It is criminal to put our servicemen and women in harm's way and to put the lives of so many civilians on the line for the misguided frustrations of the Bush administration.
A friend is always good to have, but a lover's kiss is better than angels raining down on me.
Well, I've been in a few car wrecks.
There's a freedom to being young that is harder to come by as time goes on.
Being a white South African, I enjoyed the better things that that country gave to a small percentage of its population.
I definitely like the oddballs. There's a song called 'Little Thing,' which is the only song that I have recorded that has no words. And it's the one that I get past my critic inside me.
I hope that just what I sing about and how I relate to my audience is as much of a political statement as I need to make.
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.
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.
I go back to South Africa at least once a year, sometimes twice, and usually for a month. And probably, I'm guessing, I'll spend more time back there as I get older.
We give the podium to a lot of people who shouldn't have the podium. The message that's delivered the loudest and in the most entertaining way is the one that we're going to put on because that's what we want. We want ratings more than we want to deliver information. That's just where the culture's gotten.
I want to figure out a way to not be stupid with money, then make a whole bunch of it, then I want to move to Outer Mongolia. I want to milk a yak. Maybe I'll just settle for a cow.
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.
I use God in my songs a lot but I don't have a relationship. I don't know what that means.
I fear that our true motivation is about oil and our own flailing economy; about the failure to destroy Al Qaeda and about revenge.
We look to our leaders once we elect them to either lead us in the right direction or at least not crush us.
I'm a bit of a caveman - I don't go out into the digital space very often. I lie facedown on the grass and count how many bugs I can find.
Good music is good music, and everything else can go to hell.
I'm a fairly tormented artist, and I'm less willing to indulge myself in self-pity, outside of songwriting.
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.
You wear nothing but you wear it so well.
I've never been much of a craftsman, in an educated way. But I think just the experience of writing makes the avenues I follow a little more efficient in some ways. At the same time, when you're young, you're a little more fearless, and there's less of an internal critic.
For me, in songwriting, I have a route I can take. Maybe there's some forks, I can go this way, this way. But I know those roads. I still have the experience behind me.
I think I'm probably a very sad man wrapped in a very joyful package, and I think I'm very resilient, and I think I'm quite generous, sometimes to a fault. And I'm very bad with money, but I don't see that too much of a flaw.
The saddest part of the human race is we're obsessed with this idea of 'us and them,' which is really a no-win situation, whether it's racial, cultural, religious or political.
When I look at how fortunate I've been, being a musician... my response to being overpaid is that I should pay it back to my community in some way.
I don't think socialism, and I don't think warmness and respect are necessarily bad words.
The world and the universe are far more wonderful if there's not a puppet master.
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.
The idea that we're somehow centrally important to the planet's existence is pretty comical - although I'd like us to be.
It's a melting pot, southern Africa. You find these cultural collisions that result in art and music, and it's pretty amazing.
I think we should all talk to our enemies and talk to our friends. Talk! That's the only way we'll find solutions.
If I find something I like, I'll chase it and see what comes out the other side. Once a song gets momentum and gets away from you, that's a good sign.
We have to be active about kindness and about peace. I've always fantasized that it would be great if there was a Department of Peace.
I want to figure out a way to not be stupid with money, then make a whole bunch of it, then I want to move to Outer Mongolia. I want to milk a yak. Maybe I'll just settle for a cow. Can you milk a bison?
I think some people would say that I do overwhelm the words with the music, and sometimes thank goodness I do.
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.
I'll lean on you and you lean on me and we'll be okay.
Tomorrow is no place to place your better days.
How could I have been anyone other than me?
There's war - there's always been war, as long as most of us have been alive. There have always been people being abused, there's always been horrible things in the world. Why are we outraged? We should just be quiet and figure it out, and work it out together.
I'm a very vicious critic of myself.
I don't think everything is going to get peachy ever. But I think we have to fight for what we believe in.
I'm familiar with that feeling of silence that comes with a very imminent catastrophe, when you know you have absolutely no control over a situation.
In so many areas of life, I'm a spaz and incompetent.
I don't believe in trickle-down economics. I don't think that people who have the most are inclined to share it, generally.
I think I am a very kind person. I think I'm joyful, but I could be kinder and I could be more joyful. I do believe peace is a state of grace, and not the absence of violence.
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.
I find a therapy in playing music, in many different ways.
Take what you can from your dreams, make them as real as anything.
Being able to scream at the top of my lungs in front of people is very therapeutic. It is a great gift for me to be able to do that.
I've always been obsessed by visual art as I have been by music personally, but that doesn't mean anything professionally.
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.
I'm partly obsessed by aging gracefully.
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