Jerry Garcia Quotes

So it's one of those things where we have to - our problem is pacing ourselves and still reaching a large enough number of our audience. Because we don't want to burn the audience. And we don't want to be excluding anybody.

We're not uncomfortable with it, and we've already been through enough of the music business where I'm not really worried that commercial success is going to in some way - we're already past saving, you know what I mean? It's too late for us.

All I know is, if you listen to society, you'll never get anywhere!

Yeah, I think we have to. If we want our shows to be - if we want the quality of the shows to be good, and we want the energy to be high, and if we want to be in good enough physical shape to do them, and not exhaust ourselves on the road, and not get stale, we have to pace.

To get really high is to forget yourself. And to forget yourself is to see everything else. And to see everything else is to become an understanding molecule in evolution, a conscious tool of the universe.

There is a road, no simple highway, between the dawn and the dark of night, and if you go, no one may follow, that path is for your steps alone

And when you don't have to talk to the person next to you, that's real clean. Takes a certain thing not to try to keep anything up, not to have to entertain one another.

We've been trying to sell out for years, nobody's buying!

And for me there's still more material than 20 lifetimes that I can use up.

We were very fortunate to have a a little time in history when LSD was still legal and were able to experiment with drugs just like we were doing with music.

America is still mostly xenophobic and racist. That's the nature of America, I think.

What we're thinking about is a peaceful planet. We're not thinking about anything else. We're not thinking about any kind of power. We're not thinking about any kind of struggles. We're not thinking about revolution or war or any of that. That's not what we want. Nobody wants to get hurt. Nobody wants to hurt anybody. We would all like to be able to live an uncluttered life. A simple life, a good life. And think about moving the whole human race ahead a step, or a few steps.

What's been great about the human race gives you a sense of how great you might get, how far you can reach.

So we are pretty convinced we don't want to play huge stadiums unless we can play them well.

The sun will shine in my back door one day..

We didn't invent the Grateful Dead, the crowd invented the Grateful Dead. We were just in line to see what was going to happen.

Either you were a hoodlum, or you were a puddle on the sidewalk.

If you're able to enjoy something, to devote your life to it or a reasonable amount of time and energy, it will work out for you.

I Don't Think There's A Good Excuse For Being Unhappy. I'm Not Particularly Unhappy, But I Know What Pain Is. I think That Life Is Characterized By Pain, Partly. Part Of The Way You Can Tell You're Alive Is By How Much Pain You're Experiencing, Or How Little ...

Whistle through your teeth and spit cuz, it's Alright

I'm shopping around for something to do that no one will like.

The alternate media are becoming important and viable alternatives to playing live. Records, videos, that kind of thing. They're going to start to count for something. Because there's only a limited amount of us-time available to us.

Stuff that's hidden and murky and ambiguous is scary because you don't know what it does.

Death comes at you no matter what you do in this life, and to equate drugs with death is a facile comparison.

You ain't gonna learn what you don't wanna know.

In folk music, I've always been fond of the fragment. The song that has one verse. And you don't know anything about the characters, you don't know what they're doing, but they're doing something important. I love that. I'm really a sucker for that kind of song.

Our strong suit is what we do, and our audience.

I mean, whatever kills you kills you, and your death is authentic no matter how you die.

If the thunder don't get ya then the lightning will.

I equate Deadheads to people that like black licorice. There aren't many people that like black licorice, but the ones that do, REALLY REALLY like it! Or buttermilk, or whatever.

The bigger issue, was the whole takeover of the food industry by big corporations.

See, there's only two theaters, man that are set up pretty groovy all around for music and for smooth stage changes, good lighting and all that - the Fillmore and The Capitol Theatre. And those are the only two in the whole country.

We're sort of like the town whore that's finally become an institution. We're finally becoming respectable.

every mind is at least as heavy as mine

For me, I think the only danger is being too much in love with guitar playing.
The MUSIC is the most important thing, and the guitar is only the instrument.

We're like licorice. Not everybody likes licorice, but the people who like licorice really like licorice.

Magic is what we do.
Music is how we do it.

Listen to the river sing sweet songs to rock my soul.

You have to get past the idea that music has to be one thing. To be alive in America is to hear all kinds of music constantly: radio, records, churches, cats on the street, everywhere music. And with records, the whole history of music is open to everyone who wants to hear it.

What we do is as American as lynch mobs. America has always been a complex place.

Live life expecting the worst, hoping for the best, and living for the future!

Cats on the bandstand, give them each a big hand, anyone who sweats like that must be all right.

What a long strange trip it's been.

But hey, when you live in Watts, you need a little smack to get by, you know what I mean? You need something soft and comfortable in your life, 'cause you're not going to get it from what's around you. And society isn't going to give it to you.

What is life but being conscious? And good and evil are manifestations of consciousness. If you reject one, you're not getting the whole thing that's there to be had.

I think it's too bad that everybody's decided to turn on drugs, I don't think drugs are the problem. Crime is the problem. Cops are the problem. Money's the problem. But drugs are just drugs.

I'm not Beethoven!

You don't want to be the best at what you do, you want to be the only one.

I think The Grateful Dead kind of represents the spirit of being able to go out and have an adventure in America at large.

We have quite a large area, and that makes it more fun for us - certainly more satisfying, because it doesn't restrict us to one particular idea or one particular style. The result, I think, is pretty interesting ... we don't expect to make a fortune at it or ever be popular or famous or worshipped or hit The Ed Sullivan Show or the circuses or the big top. As long as we can play, we'll play, regardless of what it's for, who it's for or anything. It's fun for us - that's the important thing.

Hang me, oh, hang me, so I'll be dead and gone. I wouldn't mind hanging, boys, but you wait in jail so long.

It's all part of it, man.

Don't tell me this town 'aint got no heart

It's pretty clear now that what looked like it might have been some kind of counterculture is, in reality, just the plain old chaos of undifferentiated weirdness.