Maynard James Keenan Quotes

Everything revolves around the music when it comes to Tool.

There's always somebody in your life you know that just, somehow, you know, they're just that borderline sociopath that just wants what they want and doesn't care about relationships. Everybody has several of those people in their life.

If the education of our kids comes from radio, television, newspapers - if that's where they get most of their knowledge from, and not from the schools, then the powers that be are definitely in charge, because they own all those outlets.

You know, I grew up listening to Joni Mitchell.

Do unto others what has been done to you.

For me, life is writing and I can do it anywhere. It doesn't matter where I am. I listen. I write. I live.

Everything we release with Tool is inspired by our music.

Today's woman puts on wigs, fake eyelashes, false nails, sixteen pounds of make-up/shadows/blushes/creams, living bras, various pads that would make a linebacker envious, has implants and assorted other surgeries, then complains that she cannot find a 'real' man

I always knew that I wanted to be an artist.

I think the Grammys are nothing more than some gigantic promotional machine for the music industry. They cater to a low intellect and they feed the masses. They don't honor the arts or the artist for what he created. It's the music business celebrating itself.

I've always had an affinity for growing things.

The record company's worst fear is that you'll fall in love or get rich.

After all, in today's music scene every band seems to steal from other bands.

Put a small child in a playpen with an apple and a bunny. If s/he eats the apple and plays with the bunny, s/he's normal;but if s/he eats the bunny and plays with the apple, I'll buy you a new car. Somewhere along the line we must have been TAUGHT to do the wrong thing.

The idea is, if I can't heal from my art, then how can you heal?

Nowadays, you have to sell, like, half a million or a million records just to break even.

I believe that when you go into a gallery or a museum, the most powerful pieces are the ones that don't have the words in the corner that distract you from the larger piece.

I'm not an educated man. I only know what I'm told, and I'm not told that much; I have no frame of reference for how to place things in history be a responsible leader. All I can do is be an artist.

But then it hasn't really been a focus of our government to make us an educated people.

People have to follow their hearts, and if their hearts lead them to Wal-Mart, so be it.

This sort of behavior is left to the psychotic, dogmatic, fundamentalist believers you see on your TV everyday letting off bombs and killing people in the name of God. Beliefs are dangerous. Beliefs allow the mind to stop functioning. A non-functioning mind is clinically dead. Believe in nothing.

Sure, I love fairy tales.

I want to find a genie in a bottle that can grant me three wishes. I want to be able to speak, read, write, and understand any language ever written or spoken, just any language throughout the history of man. That would be one of my wishes from the genie, so I would have to put "multilingual" on the resume, should I ever find the genie.

Whenever you try to work through the things that we're trying to work through, that we're addressing, it ends up looking negative. Our goal is nonjudgment, nonfiltered acceptance of everything. So much of our background collectively, especially in the United States, is denying and suppressing and disowning a lot of negativity and the darker areas. You can become swallowed up in it. It's cancerous. The goal should be to define acceptance for everything. To try and consider every aspect. To try to look into the shadows, as well as the light.

But I'm a hot-blooded Italian by nature. Whatever the situation you present, I'm going to make something out of it.

People get upset and it becomes an excuse to treat other people a certain way,but if you really step back, you realize what you've left behind.

A lot of names in America and Europe have their roots in Latin and Greek words. A lot of them go back to archetypes and their stories.

Beliefs are dangerous. Beliefs allow the mind to stop functioning. A non-functioning mind is clinically dead. Believe in nothing.

There's conflict in everything, just trying to buy a used car you deal with people that you don't want to deal with, you know, that's just the way of life, nothing stops changing, you're always going to have the conflict till your last breath, I mean on your deathbed, arguing with the doctor who's going to pay the bill, you know, it's just the reality of it, so none of that ever goes away.

I can't be a legend yet. I'm not dead.

A circle is the reflection of eternity. It has no beginning and it has no end - and if you put several circles over each other, then you get a spiral.

A lot of people into Tool, for some reason, are not interested in humor.

Because as an only child, you have your own little world.

If you want to get your soul to heaven, trust in me. Don't judge or question. You are broken now, but faith can heal you. Just do everything I tell you to do.

Most religious stories and mythologies have some sort of similar root, some sort of global archetypes.

Once you take yourself too seriously the art will suffer.

One of the challenges we set up for 'Puscifer' was to come up with a core identity and see how far we can push it.

I think that people get outraged over things. I think what we really need is a kind of borderline extinction level event to get people back to caring about what really matters.

I think there's a reason why wine figures into so many religions. There's something transcendent about it. It's sort of the way that music is more than the sum of its parts. You have all these elements that make up the terroir that wine can communicate.