You don't love me. If you really knew me, you wouldn't love me. You love who you think I am. And don't pretend that you know me. Because I don't even know myself.

Music saved me; I mean, my upbringing was like a hurricane, and music was the tree I held onto.

I think what happens is when something becomes successful, then a lot of people take credit for it in such ways that it takes credit away from you.

I'm Eddie Vedder and I sing. I do.

If at noon you sit down and there's just silence or blank tape, in an hour if you have a song, that didn't exist an hour ago. Now it exists and it might exist for a long time. There's something empowering about that.

I would think we have a trajectory of failure on the Republicans' part. When you think about how they managed to make John Kerry look bad during the last election for actually serving in Vietnam, and testifying in Congress after he'd gotten medals, and said that he didn't believe in them or that he didn't believe in the war and that it should stop . . . That they could turn that in negative when their guy, George W. Bush, never even went to Vietnam.

Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest.