Quotes By Maynard James Keenan

Actors have these delicate appendages called Egos.

We're five people, five individuals who came together to create something, to make music and to complete each other musically, to form a perfect circle.

Reading is more of a left-brain process, and listening to music is a right-brain function.

If the education of our kids comes from radio, television, newspapers - if that's where they get most of their knowledge from, and not from the schools, then the powers that be are definitely in charge, because they own all those outlets.

But you know, I'm the negative-Nancy, curmudgeon, glass-half-empty-with-a-leak-in-it guy - which is basically the fuel that fires me up anyway. Without that, we wouldn't have me.

And if you don't live, you have nothing to write about.

Because artists can be extremely eccentric and insane, and unfortunately, the people they hurt the most are the people that are closest to them.

But I'm a hot-blooded Italian by nature. Whatever the situation you present, I'm going to make something out of it.

After all, in today's music scene every band seems to steal from other bands.

Most religious stories and mythologies have some sort of similar root, some sort of global archetypes.

I see a lot of patterns in our behavior as a nation that parallel a lot of other historical processes.

Just in general, any government throughout history hasn't really wanted its people to be educated, because then they couldn't control them as easily.

A circle is the reflection of eternity. It has no beginning and it has no end - and if you put several circles over each other, then you get a spiral.

A lot of names in America and Europe have their roots in Latin and Greek words. A lot of them go back to archetypes and their stories.

We're just four guys and we are enjoying what we're doing with Tool.

Everything we release with Tool is inspired by our music.

Adam does most of the work when it comes to videos and he basically does the same as I do with the lyrics. The videos are his visual interpretations of our music.

Actually I never did stand up. I'm not that funny.

You know, I grew up listening to Joni Mitchell.

For me, life is writing and I can do it anywhere. It doesn't matter where I am. I listen. I write. I live.

People have to follow their hearts, and if their hearts lead them to Wal-Mart, so be it.

Shows are really strange. Sometimes you really don't know what to expect.

There is still a future with music, because people want music.

Nowadays, you have to sell, like, half a million or a million records just to break even.

Prescott National Forest is right on the edge of my home in Arizona.

Once you take yourself too seriously the art will suffer.

The idea is, if I can't heal from my art, then how can you heal?

I think the biggest problem working with me would be that I'm an only child, and so I have an internal dialogue that goes on that I just assume you can hear.

I would hope they would be our fellow artists, rather than trying to emulate or idolize clowns like us.

Music is about listening, the more you play, the more the magic spreads.