Quotes By Dave Matthews

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.

Well, I've been in a few car wrecks.

A friend is always good to have, but a lover's kiss is better than angels raining down on me.

The world and the universe are far more wonderful if there's not a puppet master.

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 think we should all talk to our enemies and talk to our friends. Talk! That's the only way we'll find solutions.

I'm familiar with that feeling of silence that comes with a very imminent catastrophe, when you know you have absolutely no control over a situation.

Good music is good music, and everything else can go to hell.

A guy and a girl can be just friends, but at one point or another, they will fall for each other... maybe temporarily, maybe at the wrong time, maybe too late, or maybe forever.

Being a white South African, I enjoyed the better things that that country gave to a small percentage of its population.

It's a melting pot, southern Africa. You find these cultural collisions that result in art and music, and it's pretty amazing.

I'm a bit of a caveman - I don't go out into the digital space very often. I lie facedown on the grass and count how many bugs I can find.

We give the podium to a lot of people who shouldn't have the podium. The message that's delivered the loudest and in the most entertaining way is the one that we're going to put on because that's what we want. We want ratings more than we want to deliver information. That's just where the culture's gotten.

Take what you can from your dreams, make them as real as anything.

I can't believe that we would lie in our graves wondering if we had spent our living days well. I can't believe that we would lie in our graves dreaming of things that we might have been.

I use God in my songs a lot but I don't have a relationship. I don't know what that means.

We've never played at this place before. This place is big, and I'm kinda nervous, so we're going to make it feel small by pretending we're in a... bedroom. We'll hang off the edge of the bed, take off our shoes and get naked!

I'll lean on you and you lean on me and we'll be okay.

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 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.

Tomorrow is no place to place your better days.

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.

It is criminal to put our servicemen and women in harm's way and to put the lives of so many civilians on the line for the misguided frustrations of the Bush administration.

We have to be active about kindness and about peace. I've always fantasized that it would be great if there was a Department of Peace.

When I listen to my favorite songwriters, they have such simple melodies and chords. I occasionally manage to stop at the right time, but all too often I keep on going until I have way too many notes and words. But that's just what I do.

I'm a very vicious critic of myself.

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.

There's a freedom to being young that is harder to come by as time goes on.

I'm partly obsessed by aging gracefully.

I'm a fairly tormented artist, and I'm less willing to indulge myself in self-pity, outside of songwriting.