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Jerry Garcia

Jerry Garcia Quotes

Musician

Jerry Garcia was a renowned American musician, known for his significant contributions to rock and bluegrass music. Born on August 1, 1942, and passing away on August 9, 1995, Garcia was the core member of the Grateful Dead band, leading them to become one of the most influential rock bands of the 1960s and 1970s.

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All Thinking Ifs Knows Needs Stuff Want Kind Reality Music Is People

Famous Jerry Garcia Quotes

“I think part of what has to happen, somewhere, pretty soon, is that a human template has to come up. We have to start with, OK let's throw out all this other stuff, everything we have thought about it before, throw out all our models, and start with a human. What is a human?”

Thinking Humans Happens Stuff Models Come Up

Author:Jerry Garcia

“You can't make rules regarding the moral behavior of something unless you know what the hell it is, and what it's capacities are. What it can do, what it can't do.”

Knows Can Do Moral Hell Behavior Capacity Moral Behavior

Author:Jerry Garcia

“I think the Muslim religious is a little too tight. It doesn't fit humans. Humans can't possibly fit into it, so there are a lot of really unhappy people, terribly repressed. It is a religion that works against you because the template don't fit. It's not human, you know.”

People Thinking Knows Humans Littles Religious Fit Unhappy Happy People Repressed Unhappy People

Author:Jerry Garcia

“What we need is something, a definition of a human, starting from the ground up, so that the suitable moral structure that goes around it makes sense. The context has to come from the human first, rather than bits and pieces of fragments of old religion and all of the old moral superstructure, whatever it used to be.”

Needs Firsts Humans Used Bits Moral Pieces Structure Starting Definitions Used To Be Make Sense Fragments Suitable Bits And Pieces

Author:Jerry Garcia

“We are experiencing a real confusion here in the United States, you know. Why is it OK to drink, but it's not OK to take drugs? Blah, blah, blah. What's a crime? What's criminality? What can you do, what can't you do, and so forth. All these things are really confusing. A lot of it is really contradictory; it doesn't really make sense.”

Knows Real States United United States Crime Drink Drug Confusion Make Sense Confusing Contradictory Blah Criminality

Author:Jerry Garcia

“There is some art that says the same thing to everybody. WE need something like that. What that is, I don't know. But virtual reality may be the key to it.”

Knows Needs May Art Reality Keys Virtual Reality

Author:Jerry Garcia

“Music is more objective, I think, than a lot of art is, but a surprising amount of it is cultural.”

Thinking Art Amount Music Is Art Is Objectives Surprising

Author:Jerry Garcia

“Western ears have a hard time hearing anything that isn't in four-four time. A lot of cultures experience music in five-eight, for example, five-four.”

Hard Culture Five Four Example Ears Western Eight Hearing Hard Times

Author:Jerry Garcia

“If you think of music as a universal language, it still has some very powerful dialects.”

Ifs Thinking Stills Language Powerful Universal Very Powerful Dialect Universal Language

Author:Jerry Garcia

“Most musicians, regardless of what culture they come from, can get together and agree on some stuff about music. As there is going to be a common ground.”

Together Culture Stuff Common Musician Agree Get Together Common Ground

Author:Jerry Garcia

“Music is a universal language insofar as you don't need to know anything else about a musician that you are playing with other than that they can play music. It doesn't matter what their music is, you can find something that you can play together, with what their culture is. The dialect part of it comes into play, but nothing like the differentiation that language sets up, for example.”

Knows Needs Matter Play Together Culture Language Example Musician Music Is Universal Dialect Universal Language Differentiation

Author:Jerry Garcia

“In the last 100 years since the invention of sound reproduction, music has really taken off and it is much more a common language because of records and transportation.”

Years Lasts Language Sound Common Taken Records Invention Transportation Reproduction Common Language

Author:Jerry Garcia

“Now there is no place you can go where you don't hear certain types of music.”

Author:Jerry Garcia

“You have to be ready, and also you have to discard notions that are fondly held by a lot of musicians, about sequences and notes and about scales and musical systems as a whole. If you think of music as a language, the space part is where you throw out all the syntax.”

Ifs Thinking Whole Language Space Ready Musician Notes Notion Musical Scales Sequence Syntax

Author:Jerry Garcia

“If you think of music as a language, the space part is where you throw out all the syntax.”

Ifs Thinking Language Space Syntax

Author:Jerry Garcia

“Listening. That's what music is about. You hear it. And I'd listen to it and something would move me one way or another; and I would try and play it.”

Trying Moving Listening Music Is

Author:Jerry Garcia

“I like all the kinds of music I've been into. I'm certainly not a purist in that I will only play country licks in a country song or blues licks in blues stuff. The thing I would like to be able to do is to make the music sound right no matter what it is. If somebody else wants to have a label for it, then that's their business.”

Kind Country Song

Author:Jerry Garcia

“As a musician you fall into certain patterns that you're not conscious of, unless you start listening to yourself on tape a lot. If you do that you start recognizing habits; then you have to try and break them.”

Trying Fall Break Listening Habit Musician Conscious

Author:Jerry Garcia

“I'll try any guitar just to see if it's different in an effort to see if it will lead me anywhere. I'm trying to have a guitar built. What's needed is better instruments, better amplifiers, better hardware for electric music to get better.”

Trying Different Effort Get Better Electric

Author:Jerry Garcia

“In my own musical existence I don't feel that being a guitar player is like the best thing on earth to be. I would rather be a balanced musician. Playing in a group, I'm tending to think more about the music and less about the guitar. That's just me getting older. I'm not interested in being a virtuoso guitar player or anything like that.”

Thinking Earth Existence Player Musician Musical Not Interested Getting Old Getting Older Guitar Player

Author:Jerry Garcia

“I don't feel that one instrument has more weight than others. Any sound that you can produce adds to your vocabulary of possibilities.”

Author:Jerry Garcia

“I think that the revolution in music is over, and what's left is a mop-up action. It's a matter of the news getting out to everybody else. I think that the important changes have already happened, changes in consciousness. It's mostly a matter of everything else catching up to that. Everything is traditionally slow - much faster than it ever has been on earth but still far, far too slow.”

Thinking Important Action Earth Consciousness Revolution Music Is

Author:Jerry Garcia

“You listen to a politician making a speech, and it is like hearing nothing. Whereas, music is unmistakably music. The thing about music is that nobody listens to it unless it's real. I don't think that you can fool anybody for too long in music. And you certainly can't fool everybody.”

Thinking Long Real Fool Politician Music Is

Author:Jerry Garcia

“Music goes way back before language does. And music is like the key to a whole spiritual existence which this society doesn't even talk about. We know it's there. The Grateful Dead plays at religious services essentially. We play at the religious services of the new age. Everybody gets high, and that's what it's all about really. Getting high is a lot more real than listening to a politician. You can think that getting high actually did happen - that you danced, and got sweaty, and carried on. It really did happen. I know when it happens. I know it when it happens every time.”

Thinking Real Age Spiritual Language Religious Existence Listening Politician Music Is Grateful New Age Getting High

Author:Jerry Garcia

“Done time in the lock-up, done time on the streets. Done time on the upswing, and time in defeat. I know what I'm askin'. I know it's a lot. Just to say that I love you. Believe it or not.”

Knows Believe Done Streets Love You Defeat Locks Lock Up

Author:Jerry Garcia

“What a long strange trip it's been.”

Long Strange Expression

Book:In the Spirit: Conversations with the Spirit of Jerry Garcia

Source: In the Spirit: Conversations with the Spirit of Jerry Garcia

“Whistle through your teeth and spit cuz, it's Alright”

Teeth Spit Alright Cuz

Author:Jerry Garcia

“Nothing left to do but smile.”

Author:Jerry Garcia

“Don't tell me this town 'aint got no heart”

Author:Jerry Garcia

“Run faster, jump higher, reach farther, and you'll always win! live life expecting the worst, hoping for the best, and living for the future! Somebody has to do something, and it's just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us.”

Running Winning Worst Higher Faster Live Life Expecting Pathetic Hoping For The Best

Author:Jerry Garcia

“Sometimes the lights all shining on me, other times I can barely see. Lately it occurs to me what a long strange trip it's been.”

Long I Can Sometimes Light Strange Shining

Book:In the Spirit: Conversations with the Spirit of Jerry Garcia

Source: In the Spirit: Conversations with the Spirit of Jerry Garcia

“We're like licorice. Not everybody likes licorice, but the people who like licorice really like licorice.”

Author:Jerry Garcia

“every mind is at least as heavy as mine”

Mind Mines Heavy

Author:Jerry Garcia

“If the thunder don't get ya then the lightning will.”

Ifs Lightning Thunder

Author:Jerry Garcia

“The sun will shine in my back door one day.”

Sun Doors One Day Shining Back Doors

Author:Jerry Garcia

“It's not enough to be the best at what you do. You must be perceived as the only one who does what you do.”

Doe Ideas Enough Work Business Creativity Innovation Being The Best

Author:Jerry Garcia

“Nobody stopped thinking about those psychedelic experiences. Once you've been to some of those places, you think, 'How can I get back there again but make it a little easier on myself?'”

Thinking Littles Easier Drug Get Back Psychedelic Getting High Lsd Psychedelic Experience Funny Drug Psychedelic Drugs

Author:Jerry Garcia

“To get really high is to forget yourself. And to forget yourself is to see everything else. And to see everything else is to become an understanding molecule in evolution, a conscious tool of the universe.”

Universe Understanding Forget Evolution Conscious Tools Get Real Psychedelic Molecules Forget You

Book:Garcia: A Signpost To New Space

Source: Garcia: A Signpost To New Space

“Somebody has to do something, and it's just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us.”

Politics Retirement Pathetic

Author:Jerry Garcia

“We were very fortunate to have a a little time in history when LSD was still legal and were able to experiment with drugs just like we were doing with music.”

Men Littles Stills Able Drug Experiments Fortunate Little Time Lsd

Author:Jerry Garcia

“Magic is what we do, music is how we do it.”

Author:Jerry Garcia

“You do not merely want to be considered just the best of the best. You want to be considered the only one who does what you do.”

Want Doe Motivational Work Insightful Dream Job Best Of The Best

Author:Jerry Garcia

“You need music, I don't know why. It's probably one of those Joe Campbell questions, why we need ritual. We need magic, and bliss, and power, myth, and celebration and religion in our lives, and music is a good way to encapsulate a lot of it.”

Knows Way Life Needs Religion Music Power Our Lives Magic Music Is Myth Celebrate Bliss Ritual Celebration Good Way Music And Life

Author:Jerry Garcia

“What's been great about the human race gives you a sense of how great you might get, how far you can reach.”

Giving Humans Might Race Human Race

Author:Jerry Garcia

“Either you were a hoodlum, or you were a puddle on the sidewalk.”

Sidewalk Puddles

Author:Jerry Garcia

“Truth is something you stumble into when you think you're going someplace else.”

Thinking Truth Is

Author:Jerry Garcia

“It's pretty clear now that what looked like it might have been some kind of counterculture is, in reality, just the plain old chaos of undifferentiated weirdness.”

Kind Has Beens Reality Might Music Clear Chaos Musical Might Have Been Weirdness Counterculture Counter Culture

Author:Jerry Garcia

“What is life but being conscious? And good and evil are manifestations of consciousness. If you reject one, you're not getting the whole thing that's there to be had.”

Ifs Whole Evil Consciousness Conscious Manifestation Good And Evil Rejects What Is Life

Author:Jerry Garcia

“And for me there's still more material than 20 lifetimes that I can use up.”

Stills I Can Use Materials Lifetime

Author:Jerry Garcia

“See, there's only two theaters, man that are set up pretty groovy all around for music and for smooth stage changes, good lighting and all that - the Fillmore and The Capitol Theatre. And those are the only two in the whole country.”

Men Two Country Whole Stage Theater Theatre Smooth Lighting Capitol Groovy Good Lighting

Author:Jerry Garcia

About the Author

Born: August 1, 1942
Died: August 9, 1995
Known for: Musician
Quotes: 166

Related Topics

Thinking Ifs Knows Needs Stuff Want Kind Reality Music Is People

Popular Topics

People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Books & Sources

In the Spirit: Conversations with the Spirit of Jerry GarciaRelated source material

Garcia: A Signpost To New SpaceRelated source material

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