Neil Peart

“What I've learned over the years is that the craft of songwriting is trying to take the personal and make it universal - or in the case of telling a story, taking the universal and making it personal.”

“Stamina is the force that drives the drumming; it's not really a sprint.”

“Drumming completely eclipsed my life from age 13, when I started drum lessons. Everything disappeared. I'd done well in school up until that time. I was fairly adjusted socially up until that time. And I became completely monomania, obsessed all through my teens. Nothing else existed anymore.”

“Our songs were not written to be listened to in headphones or on the radio. They were written to be played. All of the little infinite detail that went into the arrangements and giving ourselves lots of breathing room in terms of playing what we wanted to play and using up any ideas that we had - all of those were conceived to be performed.”

“Do yourself a favor. Don't ever say to me, 'Everything happens for a reason.'”

“There's still a lot I'm angry about, a lot of human behaviour that's appalling and despicable, but you choose what you can fight against. I always thought if I could just put something in words perfectly enough, people would get the idea and it would change things.”

“To me, drum soloing is like doing a marathon and solving equations at the same time.”

“The thing for me about Ayn Rand is that her philosophy is the only one applicable to the world today - in every sense. If you take her ideas, then take them farther in your own mind, you can find answers to pretty well everything on an individual basis.”

“Now I call myself a bleeding heart libertarian. Because I do believe in the principles of Libertarianism as an ideal - because I'm an idealist.”

“I always thought if I could just put something in words perfectly enough, people would get the idea, and it would change things. That's a harmless conceit. With people, too, you constantly think, 'If I'm nice to people and treat them well, they'll appreciate it and behave better.' They won't, but it's still not a bad way to live.”

“When I started playing, I played in R&B bands. I played James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding and all that.”

“You can surrender without a prayer, but never really pray without surrender. You can fight without ever winning, but never ever win without a fight.”

“People say to me, 'Are you still excited when you go on tour?' Should I be excited about leaving my family? No, and no one should. It's as simple as that. If you put aside the fantasy of it, it is what it is and has to be done. And that's fine, and I pour my entire energy and enthusiasm into it, but of course, I'm of two minds about the whole idea.”

“It seems to me that's the only way you can have a truly creative aggregate of people is if they're all contributing in different ways.”

“It's interesting. I've known quite a few good athletes that can't begin to play a beat on the drum set. Most team sport is about the smooth fluidity of hand-eye coordination and physical grace, where drumming is much more about splitting all those things up.”

“For me, drum elements are like hieroglyphics - I think of a certain physical figure, and a little three-dimensional glyph will appear in my mind as I'm playing.”

“I'd be very honored to be the ambassador to drum solos.”

“It was actually drumming that gave me the stamina to get into sports later. I started playing drums at 13, and when I got to the international touring level... I got interested in cross-country skiing, long-distance swimming, bicycling... things that require stamina, not finesse.”

“I've heard the stories. Like, Eric Clapton said he wanted to burn his guitar when he heard Jimi Hendrix play. I never understood that because, when I went and saw a great drummer or heard one, all I wanted to do was practice.”

“I am the audience. I want to observe people. Even when I'm playing drums onstage, I'm watching people. I'm looking at them and their faces and their T-shirts and their signs. And travelling by motorcycle, especially, the world is just coming at me.”