QuoteProject
Drumming completely eclipsed my life from age 13, when I started drum lessons. Everything disappeared. I'd done well in school up until that time. I was fairly adjusted socially up until that time. And I became completely monomania, obsessed all through my teens. Nothing else existed anymore.
Neil Peart
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote reflects the intense passion and obsession that can arise from pursuing an art form.

In this quote, Neil Peart describes how drumming consumed his life from a young age, illustrating the transformative power of music and the extent to which passion can dominate one's existence. It highlights a journey of deep emotional engagement where all other aspects of life fade away under the singular focus on mastering an art, showcasing both the beauty and potential isolation that can come from such dedication.

Themes

DrummingPassionObsessionMusicArt

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about the importance of following your passion, this quote perfectly illustrates how deep commitment can lead to extraordinary results.

More from Neil Peart

If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
Neil PeartRead
The real test of a musician is live performance. It's one thing to spend a long time learning how to play well in the studio, but to do it in front of people is what keeps me coming back to touring.
Neil PeartRead
Performing live in front of an audience is such a matter of will - all of those things you can do just fine in your basement, suddenly you have to do them in front of hundreds or thousands of people, and it becomes a different matter entirely.
Neil PeartRead
It seems to me that's the only way you can have a truly creative aggregate of people is if they're all contributing in different ways.
Neil PeartRead
What I've learned over the years is that the craft of songwriting is trying to take the personal and make it universal - or in the case of telling a story, taking the universal and making it personal.
Neil PeartRead
I've heard the stories. Like, Eric Clapton said he wanted to burn his guitar when he heard Jimi Hendrix play. I never understood that because, when I went and saw a great drummer or heard one, all I wanted to do was practice.
Neil PeartRead

Similar quotes

Writing for television is completely different from movie scriptwriting. A movie is all about the director's vision, but television is a writer's medium.
Shonda RhimesRead
My parents said, Oh, he's going to be a director someday. I wanted to be an actor.
Quentin TarantinoRead
But if a stranger in the train asks me my occupation, I never answer "writer" for fear that he may go on to ask me what I write, and to answer "poetry" would embarrass us both, for we both know that nobody can earn a living simply by writing poetry.
W. H. AudenRead
It is a widely accepted notion among painters that it does not matter what one paints as long as it is well painted. This is the essence of academicism.
Mark RothkoRead
I say 'spectacle' rather than 'story' because in the end, it isn't the intricacies of narrative that draw us to horror films. When it's there, I'm grateful for the director's skill at telling an exquisitely nuanced tale filled with psychological insight, but it is the spectacles that I take home with me.
Clive BarkerRead
Designing is not a profession but an attitude. Design has many connotations. It is the organization of materials and processes in the most productive way, in a harmonious balance of all elements necessary for a certain function. It is the intergration of technological, social, and economical requirements, biological necessities, and the psychological effects of materials, shape, color, volume and space. Thinking in relationships.
Laszlo Moholy-NagyRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.