Explore Quotes by John Rzeznik

At its best, MTV puts a face to the names, if you know what I mean. I think if you can take the expression of a song much farther, that's great. And it's one of the only outlets there is for artistic filmmaking. But it's a double-edged sword. At it's worst, MTV is just a lot of TV commercials for songs.

I was a bartender, a hot-dog vendor, a cook, sold magazine subscriptions.

Every day somebody comes up to me and says, 'That song really helped me through a difficult time,' or 'That's me and my wife's song' or 'This song means something to me because of... ' It's humbling to hear that. You're something special in someone's life, even if it is for three minutes.

I just feel really lucky to have had some hits because we had a lot of time where we didn't have them. It's better to have a hit. You can ask anyone - U2, Green Day - and they'll tell you the same thing.

We were so heavily influenced by The Replacements and by a lot of hard core bands like Bad Brains, not that we sounded like them but we were trying to play as hard and fast as we could.

Whether you are happy or miserable is completely a choice.

I wasn't present for my own life for a long time. I wasn't there; I wasn't in my relationships; I wasn't in my band; I wasn't in my soul - I was disconnected from all of it. I would let myself live in a miserable situation forever, mostly of my own making. I made my own misery and made the people around me miserable.

So what if America loses its empire? We never should have had one in the first place.

You know what the most amazing luxury problem in the world is? When you've got a bunch of hits you have to play. That means the show's going to have to be a little longer.

I never underestimate luck and working hard.

I really love Death Cab.

Having a collection of regrets when you hit your 40s is part of the deal.

I wouldn't start writing songs like 'Name' all the time just because I thought that's what people wanted to hear. I'll write a song in the same vein because it's what I want to write.

I'm not trying to chase a radio hit, but at a certain time, you can't make the same album over and over.

I feel a whole lot of gratitude for having hits.

If you go back and listen to the album 'Name' was on, there were a lot of garage songs on it.

It's nice to see bands you could see at a bar finally get a chance.

I'm one of those guys who always has that kind of underlying anxiety kind of always creeping around in the background.

Performing with a hologram in a three-dimensional world feels somewhat strange. But you know, the experience of playing live in a room full of people is most exciting, it's something that the social media has not been able to recreate. There's some kind of intensity about it, something that the social media doesn't capture.

I write about everyday people, everyday lives.

I love the Smithsonian. I'm a real dork for that kind of stuff.