Explore Quotes by Dave Matthews

When I write the set, I try to create something that will not only be interesting for the audience, but will have a flow for the band, too, so we don't get boring.

I'm from a very politically and socially conscious family. My mother always made a point of making us look at what was going on around us and take stock of our part in it.

It's funny, I get a little quieter with time. I don't want to chase my tail and one day repeat myself and repeat myself and one day have kids going to college and not have memories that I should, because I was too busy doing my thing.

The idea that we're somehow centrally important to the planet's existence is pretty comical - although I'd like us to be.

When I look at how fortunate I've been, being a musician... my response to being overpaid is that I should pay it back to my community in some way.

Success turns a lot of people off. I have a pretty solid sense of joy and respect that irritates people, and can irritate me, too.

I'm a very vicious critic of myself.

I do still get shocked every once in a while when I catch my reflection when I'm walking past a glass building, but it's in my mind about getting older and finding out what I'm going to look like as it unfolds - or as it folds, depending on where the marks and scars land.

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

In so many areas of life, I'm a spaz and incompetent.

My songs are like a three-legged dog - you have to get to know them to have any love for them.

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.

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 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.

There's war - there's always been war, as long as most of us have been alive. There have always been people being abused, there's always been horrible things in the world. Why are we outraged? We should just be quiet and figure it out, and work it out together.

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. Can you milk a bison?

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

Nothing is black or white, nothing's 'us or them.' 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 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.

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.

I guess, and it may be a flaw, that I think about rhythm more [than anything else]. I'm always wanting to find something unusual. I've started to try and write more traditionally, but for whatever reason, I tend toward trying to find something that sounds more like a pattern to me.