A biography for Dave Matthewshasn’t been written yet.
“I think we should all talk to our enemies and talk to our friends. Talk! That's the only way we'll find solutions.”
“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.”
“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.”
“I'm a very vicious critic of myself.”
“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.”
“Well, I've been in a few car wrecks.”
“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.”
“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.”
“I don't think everything is going to get peachy ever. But I think we have to fight for what we believe in.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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 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.”
“It's funny, I get a little quieter with time. I don't want to chase my tail and one day repeat myself and repeat myself and one day have kids going to college and not have memories that I should, because I was too busy doing my thing.”
“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.”
“I'll lean on you and you lean on me and we'll be okay.”
“I've always been obsessed by visual art as I have been by music personally, but that doesn't mean anything professionally.”
“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.”
“How could I have been anyone other than me?”