Caffeine. The gateway drug.

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...

Over the years, we’ve always been impressed by the Brazilian flags at our shows … it’s fantastic to finally play for all Brazilians.

I’m trying to break any chain of negative parenting that I might have survived.

Playing music for as long as I had been playing music and then getting a shot at making a record and at having an audience and stuff, it’s just like an untamed force… a different...

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.

People on death row, the treatment of animals, women’s right to choose. So much in America is based on religious fundamentalist Christianity. Grow up! This is the modern world!

I don’t know what this means. I don’t think it means anything.

I feel like we have to keep our eyes on the road. Being nostalgic is like taking an offramp and getting a sandwich – and then you get back on the highway. I don’t want...

If there was anything that I learned with my own writing process, maybe there’s too many choices what to write about. Just the amount of subject matter in the world these days; maybe that feels...

It’s understandable why someone would like their entertainment to provide an escape from modern day worries and the reality of war. We feel this record creates a healthy opportunity to process some of these emotions...

I don’t need drugs to make my life tragic.

I’ve never been a calm, midrange type person.

If he can’t sleep, how will he ever dream?

Any conversations we hear about ‘So who are Pearl Jam marketing to?’ are despicable.

There’s a lot of anger and frustration in the atmosphere these days. We didn’t want to add to the negative noise pollution, but we did want to do something. It’s just not the time to...

When it comes to grunge or even just Seattle, I think there was one band that made the definitive music of the time. It wasn’t us or Nirvana, but Mudhoney. Nirvana delivered it to the...

You know, rock stardom… I have a hard time discussing that because I don’t really accept it. It’s not really that tangible. What’s really bizarre is how it’s used as a thing – you know,...

It’s like we took our aggressions and shaped something positive from them in a very direct manner. Though we’d qualify most of the record as hard-driving, the two quiet ones (Parachutes and Come Back) could...

I just have this deep kind of connection to reality of being like… in a way, I feel like a dock worker. I want to stay in connection with my dock-worker side, ’cause that’s how...

I think celebrities suck.

Society, you’re a crazy breed.

I just finished touring, and I’m on a detox thing. It’s a heavy detox, so nothing in my belly except water, salt, and cayenne pepper.

It seems like we got the message across,

Life moves fast. As much as you can learn from your history, you have to move forward.

I was living on the wrong side of the tracks in Evanston, Illinois, in a home for boys. We had these Jackson 5 records. I really related to their voices – they were about my...

She tells herself, and everyone else, father is risking his life for our freedoms.

If it’s a good cause, I’ll play just about anything.

So my one kid’s 4, my other kid’s 4 months, I’m 44, Barack Obama is the 44th president – it’s all lining up nicely here.

I had a long talk with Bruce Springsteen on a rooftop during the Vote for Change tour (in 2004). And it boiled down to this: That guy you used to be, he’s still in the...

It’s fun singing with other people who are really good singers. There’s something kind of poignant about braiding a couple vocals.

It’s easily the best stuff we’ve done but also some of the hardest stuff. It’s very aggressive, because again, it’s kind of a product of what it’s like to be an American these days. It’s...

I think that if your approach is one where you don’t want to alienate anybody, you’re going to have to soften the viewpoint or the information that you’re offering to such an extent that it...

Our influences are who we are. It’s rare that anything is an absolutely pure vision; even Daniel Johnston sounds like the Beatles. And that’s the problem with the bands I’m always asked about, the ones...

We’ve got clouds and rain, just like in Seattle … but Sao Paulo is better.

It’s not a bad time to be me.

I am not a good enough writer to have an agenda or come up with a message and try to put it into a song. It’s more like you write what comes to you… You...

I think music is the greatest art form that exists, and I think people listen to music for different reasons, and it serves different purposes. The best songs are the ones that make you feel...

The one thing about going from the audience to the stage in just three years is that you know how it feels to be down there.

It’s been a difficult record and it’s like sometimes the harder something is, then the more valuable it becomes,

Sometimes, whether you like it or not, people elevate you. It’s real easy to fall.

Pretty much at all times music motivates me. How can I say this without sounding in any way proud of myself? Obviously I’ve always written songs that are critical of our government, and talk about...

Music’s at its best when it has a purpose. In the days of ‘Rock Around the Clock’ and ‘Good Golly, Miss Molly,’ the purpose was, like, ‘We should be allowed to do this.’ We certainly...

The love received is the love that is saved.

After the Ramones, it was more about new wave for me than punk.

[When asked about his thoughts on gods]I think it’s like a movie that was way too popular. It’s a story that’s been told too many times and just doesn’t mean anything. Man lived on the...

I realized in the early days I just didn’t edit at all. But I think you become a little more cagey with your lyrics when you know more people are going to hear them and...

I don’t need drugs to make my life tragic

At a certain point, you realize you have a responsibility more behind yourself and your need for adrenaline. I’m glad I did things in my 20s that were more reckless.

The interesting thing is that it seems like George W. Bush would have been happy being the president of anything. He could have been president of Major League Baseball.