In my own musical existence I don't feel that being a guitar player is like the best thing on earth to be. I would rather be a balanced musician. Playing in a group, I'm tending to think more about the music and less about the guitar. That's just me getting older. I'm not interested in being a virtuoso guitar player or anything like that.

Jerry Garcia

Categorized in : Thinking Player Musical

You need music, I don't know why. It's probably one of those Joe Campbell questions, why we need ritual. We need magic, and bliss, and power, myth, and celebration and religion in our lives, and music is a good way to encapsulate a lot of it.

Jerry Garcia

music power life

What we're thinking about is a peaceful planet. We're not thinking about anything else. We're not thinking about any kind of power. We're not thinking about any kind of struggles. We're not thinking about revolution or war or any of that. That's not what we want. Nobody wants to get hurt. Nobody wants to hurt anybody. We would all like to be able to live an uncluttered life. A simple life, a good life. And think about moving the whole human race ahead a step, or a few steps.

Jerry Garcia

hurt peace life

To get really high is to forget yourself. And to forget yourself is to see everything else. And to see everything else is to become an understanding molecule in evolution, a conscious tool of the universe.

Jerry Garcia

molecules understanding tools

We're like licorice. Not everybody likes licorice, but the people who like licorice really like licorice.

Jerry Garcia

likes people

You ain't gonna learn what you don't wanna know.

Jerry Garcia

personal-growth growth knows

Too much of a good thing is just about right

Jerry Garcia

too-much-of-a-good-thing too-much good-things

If we had any nerve at all, if we had any real balls as a society, or whatever you need, whatever quality you need, real character, we would make an effort to really address the wrongs in this society, righteously.

Jerry Garcia

effort real character

Sometimes the lights all shining on me, other times I can barely see. Lately it occurs to me what a long strange trip it's been.

Jerry Garcia

shining light long

I Don't Think There's A Good Excuse For Being Unhappy. I'm Not Particularly Unhappy, But I Know What Pain Is. I think That Life Is Characterized By Pain, Partly. Part Of The Way You Can Tell You're Alive Is By How Much Pain You're Experiencing, Or How Little.

Jerry Garcia

pain unhappy thinking

Somebody has to do something, and it's just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us.

Jerry Garcia

pathetic politics retirement

Truth is something you stumble into when you think you're going someplace else.

Jerry Garcia

truth-is thinking

All I know is, if you listen to society, you'll never get anywhere!

Jerry Garcia

individualism ifs knows

Nothing left to do but smile.

Jerry Garcia

left

To me, that's the key thing, the pursuit of happiness. That's the basic, ultimate freedom.

Jerry Garcia

ultimate-freedom pursuit-of-happiness keys

You don't want to be the best at what you do, you want to be the only one.

Jerry Garcia

being-the-best want

It's pretty clear now that what looked like it might have been some kind of counterculture is, in reality, just the plain old chaos of undifferentiated weirdness.

Jerry Garcia

counter-culture music reality

Magic is what we do, music is how we do it.

Jerry Garcia

magic music-is

If you're able to enjoy something, to devote your life to it or a reasonable amount of time and energy, it will work out for you.

Jerry Garcia

work-out able energy

The great thing is the thing of being able to see things through many points of view. That's enlarging. I mean, it saves you from ultimately from the boredom of having one point of view, like being locked in a room with nothing but your own point of view, your own references.

Jerry Garcia

boredom views mean

Constantly choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil.

Jerry Garcia

choices evil two