I probably get strangers coming up to me two or three times a week to just say something nice. I get more than my share of compliments as I walk through my daily life. I’m not having to show off or make a point about how good I am at doing something. I think I’ve always kind of been that way. – Eddie Vedder
Our influences are who we are. It’s rare that anything is an absolutely pure vision; even Daniel Johnston sounds like the Beatles. And that’s the problem with the bands I’m always asked about, the ones derivative of the early Seattle sound. They don’t dilute their influences enough. – Eddie Vedder
That’s part of the curse: If you’re gonna play the song, you better play it. I’ve tried to phone in ‘Jeremy’ a few times, and it’s tough. It doesn’t work. – Eddie Vedder
There’s been times when I’ve been standing in a line at a movie and someone’s hit me with something really heavy about someone really close and how our music has helped them get through it. Even in our darkest moments we try and find something beautiful. – Eddie Vedder
I was living on the wrong side of the tracks in Evanston, Illinois, in a home for boys. We had these Jackson 5 records. I really related to their voices – they were about my age, but they were doing it. – Eddie Vedder
With about a dozen assorted ongoing conflicts in the news every day, and with the stories becoming more horrific, the level of sadness becomes unbearable. And what becomes of our planet when that sadness becomes apathy? Because we feel helpless. And we turn our heads and turn the page. – Eddie Vedder
The interesting thing is that it seems like George W. Bush would have been happy being the president of anything. He could have been president of Major League Baseball. – Eddie Vedder
If there was anything that I learned with my own writing process, maybe there’s too many choices what to write about. Just the amount of subject matter in the world these days; maybe that feels chaotic for me. – Eddie Vedder
I’m not ready to be that guy who can meet with world leaders and all that. It’s tremendous what Bono does. I don’t know if I could do it, not the way he does. I don’t think many people could. – Eddie Vedder
At a certain point, you realize you have a responsibility more behind yourself and your need for adrenaline. I’m glad I did things in my 20s that were more reckless. – Eddie Vedder
I just have this deep kind of connection to reality of being like… in a way, I feel like a dock worker. I want to stay in connection with my dock-worker side, ’cause that’s how I grew up. – Eddie Vedder
People are just trying to work their jobs, raise their families, discipline their kids, and have a good life… Politics has just become like bad weather. And they deserve clear skies. – Eddie Vedder
I’m an example of someone who never made it to university. I did have this dream to be a musician. I felt that this dream had an expiration date. – Eddie Vedder
There’s a lot of bands that get to a certain level, and it just stops. They scrap it. Compare this to, say, The Rolling Stones or The Who, where they just continued on forever and are still playing, or they quit after 20 years. – Eddie Vedder
I just think that all of us in this room should have a voice in how the USA is represented. And he don’t allow us our voice, that’s all I’m saying. – Eddie Vedder
When I was 13, I got my first guitar, and I could sort of play Ted Nugent songs, but I couldn’t play the solos. But I could play along with entire Ramones songs. – Eddie Vedder
You can go down the list of great artists and kind of understand that they are products of their environment. Whether it’s U2 or Henry Rollins or myself or Johnny Lydon, they’re gonna be products of their environment. – Eddie Vedder
If I’m not on tour or in the studio, I’m in nature somewhere, usually some kind of ocean. Playing music has afforded me that. It’s not lost on me that it’s a tremendous opportunity to be able to spend your life being surrounded by nature. – Eddie Vedder
When I had a child, everyone was telling me that I was going to see the world through her eyes, and everything was going to get this nice gloss to it. I kept waiting for that to happen, and thought there was a real problem with me that it wasn’t. – Eddie Vedder
As far as viewpoints, I think I’m more well-rounded and definitely more educated, and probably more hopeful than I used to be. I think when you’re young and you get into a cause, you get frustrated with it within a few years, or six months. – Eddie Vedder
