110+ Jerry Garcia Quotes On Death, Music And Peace

Jerry Garcia was an American musician best known for his lead guitar work and singing with the Grateful Dead. He was also a highly acclaimed solo artist, performing and recording with numerous side projects and bands, including the Jerry Garcia Band. Garcia was known for his musical and cultural influence, and for his improvisational ability, which earned him the nickname “Captain Trips.” Following is our collection on famous quotes by Jerry Garcia on death, life, love.

Top 10 Jerry Garcia Quotes

1. Constantly choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil.
2. 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.
3. Live life expecting the worst, hoping for the best, and living for the future!
4. Somebody has to do something, and it's just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us.
5. We're involved in a society which is undergoing some really weird changes now.
6. To me, that's the key thing, the pursuit of happiness. That's the basic, ultimate freedom.
7. If the thunder don't get ya then the lightning will.
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. We would all like to be able to live an uncluttered life, a simple life, a good life.

Jerry Garcia Image Quotes

We're involved in a society which is undergoing some really weird changes now. — Jerry Garcia

Jerry Garcia Short Quotes

• Too much of a good thing is just about right
• Right now, America is under the gun. It's being tested and is being co-opted in a big way.
• Whistle through your teeth and spit cuz, it's Alright
• The bigger issue, was the whole takeover of the food industry by big corporations.
• Either you were a hoodlum, or you were a puddle on the sidewalk.
• American society has gone completely into denial.
• If something doesn't work, it becomes obvious immediately. This just isn't going to work.
• The sun will shine in my back door one day.
• I'm goin' where the wind don't blow so strange, maybe off on some high cold mountain chain.
• The pursuit of happiness is an overview kind of thing. It's not in the Bill of Rights.

Jerry Garcia Quotes About Life

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. — Jerry Garcia

I Don't Think There's A Good Excuse For Being Unhappy. I'm Not Particularly Unhappy, But I Know What Pain Is. I think That Life Is Characterized By Pain, Partly. Part Of The Way You Can Tell You're Alive Is By How Much Pain You're Experiencing, Or How Little. — Jerry Garcia

If you assume you haven't learned anything yet, there's no reason your playing can't stay dynamic all your life. — 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. — Jerry Garcia

If you're able to enjoy something, to devote your life to it or a reasonable amount of time and energy, it will work out for you. — Jerry Garcia

Jerry Garcia Quotes About Love

For me, I think the only danger is being too much in love with guitar playing. The MUSIC is the most important thing, and the guitar is only the instrument. — Jerry Garcia

It's odd that there is a high level of appreciation of nature. There is the aesthetic side that really loves nature and beauty. — Jerry Garcia

In folk music, I've always been fond of the fragment. The song that has one verse. And you don't know anything about the characters, you don't know what they're doing, but they're doing something important. I love that. I'm really a sucker for that kind of song. — Jerry Garcia

Jerry Garcia Quotes About Music

You have to get past the idea that music has to be one thing. To be alive in America is to hear all kinds of music constantly: radio, records, churches, cats on the street, everywhere music. And with records, the whole history of music is open to everyone who wants to hear it. — Jerry Garcia

If you think of music as a universal language, it still has some very powerful dialects. — 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. — 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. — 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. — 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. — 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. — Jerry Garcia

Music is more objective, I think, than a lot of art is, but a surprising amount of it is cultural. — 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. — Jerry Garcia

It's much too late to do anything about rock & roll now. — Jerry Garcia

Jerry Garcia Famous Quotes And Sayings

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. — Jerry Garcia

We're involved in a society which is undergoing some really weird changes now. — Jerry Garcia

The great thing is the thing of being able to see things through many points of view. That's enlarging. I mean, it saves you from ultimately from the boredom of having one point of view, like being locked in a room with nothing but your own point of view, your own references. — Jerry Garcia

The real problems are cultural. The problems of the people who take drugs as a cultural trap - I think there's a real problem there, the crack stuff, the hopelessness of the junkie. The urban angst. — Jerry Garcia

For me, the lame part of the Sixties was the political part, the social part. The real part was the spiritual part. — 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. — 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. — Jerry Garcia

You can't repeat things because each time is different. The universe has changed. Everything has changed. — Jerry Garcia

There's a lot there to enlarge you. That's part of the value of being in an extended family is that it enlarges you. It makes you bigger. It makes you more. — Jerry Garcia

I think that America is in danger of losing its adventurous spirit in the cause of some kind of illusion of safety, or substitute of law and order there. — Jerry Garcia

People may need something to celebrate. They need a context in which to celebrate things. They need something that fills the void that's left by the bankruptcy of religion and so forth. — Jerry Garcia

There's a need for a ritual and for real joy and real bliss. Real fun. — 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. — Jerry Garcia

If you are picking the lesser of two evils, you are still picking Evil. — Jerry Garcia

You do not merely want to be considered just the best of the best. You want to be considered the only ones who do what you do. — 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. — Jerry Garcia

At some point or another, our boundaries run into the boundaries of the exterior reality. Like we run into laws and other things that we don't own or don't have control over. — Jerry Garcia

One of the things that's attractive about cyberspace is that it can be construed as no threat. If you see it through the video game keyhole, the amusement keyhole, the entertainment keyhole, it is no threat. If you see it through the LSD keyhole, the consciousness-expanding keyhole, it's like electronic drugs: it is a threat. — 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. — Jerry Garcia

The pursuit of happiness is such a large of concept. — Jerry Garcia

The point is there is more information now then you can pass along comfortably in an oral tradition, say a strictly speaking culture. That is a problem. — Jerry Garcia

The reality which is pretending be reality right now, impersonating reality, is just a pretty flimsy structure. There is not a lot of substance to it. You can't find people who are actively involved of affected by it. What you see is a completely different world, what you see is the world of the homeless, and so forth. — Jerry Garcia

I recognize that as a musician there is a certain chauvinism attached to it, which is the thing of, "I spent my time learning how to play. You didn't spend time learning how to play, therefore, you are not a musician." — Jerry Garcia

There are any number of things that survive great, and don't need any kind of consciousness, so why bother going through all the trouble of evolving monkeys that don't run very well or climb very fast or have particularly sharp teeth, but have big heads. — 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. — 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. — Jerry Garcia

The satisfaction of producing a work of art is the thing of getting off on it on some level. — Jerry Garcia

We've been trying to sell out for years, nobody's buying! — 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. — 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. — Jerry Garcia

Now there is no place you can go where you don't hear certain types of music. — Jerry Garcia

How many Beethovens are there that just for lack of the training, the world doesn't get exposed to. — Jerry Garcia

In reality everybody has got musical thoughts. If you are able to overcome the part of it which is muscle training, which is what most musical playing actually is, performance actually is, is muscle training, and you are able to convert your ideas directly into music, you're a musician, too. — Jerry Garcia

Listen to the river sing sweet songs to rock my soul. — Jerry Garcia

Light shows are sort of a meditative kind of experience, you know. It is not like a shock. — Jerry Garcia

Kerouac was a breeze, some kind of incredible super-American, mythos personality blasting through the highways of 1947 America. — Jerry Garcia

I sat down to my supper, twas a bottle of red whiskey. — Jerry Garcia

Everybody needs adventure, and everybody needs something to enlarge his or her lives. — Jerry Garcia

I am not a keyboard person. The mouse is better. — 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. — Jerry Garcia

The performances in the future would be like an audience wired to somebody who was sort of instigating, and then moment-to-moment creation would be transmuted individually. — Jerry Garcia

The Japanese are hard to figure out. — Jerry Garcia

What a long strange trip it's been. — Jerry Garcia

every mind is at least as heavy as mine — 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. — Jerry Garcia

... Grateful Dead - that's it !! ... nobody in the band liked it, (the name) I didn't like it, either, but it got around that that was one of the candidates for our new name, and everyone else said, 'Yeah, that's great.' It turned out to be tremendously lucky. It's just repellent enough to filter curious onlookers and just quirky enough that parents don't like it. — Jerry Garcia

Run faster, jump higher, reach farther, and you'll always win! — 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. — Jerry Garcia

I equate Deadheads to people that like black licorice. There aren't many people that like black licorice, but the ones that do, REALLY REALLY like it! Or buttermilk, or whatever. — Jerry Garcia

There is no dogma, there isn't anything about how the universe works. — Jerry Garcia

We're like licorice. Not everybody likes licorice, but the people who like licorice really like licorice. — Jerry Garcia

That's part of that thing of transcending languages. Every person will have their own language. — Jerry Garcia

We are not completely autonomous. — Jerry Garcia

Why it's okay for people to tape the shows? Because even so, there's no way you can bottle up the experience. You can take the notes home, but that experience is one you have to be there. — Jerry Garcia

If you are going to develop beast technology, you want to start by having cage technology. You want to make the rules first, you know. — Jerry Garcia

The nature of what we're doing is something, which is by its very nature, is non-formulaic. There's no way that you can make it happen by intention alone. It's something that you have to sort of allow it to happen, and you have to allow for it to happen. — Jerry Garcia

Each person makes their own decision about what it is that is happening, whether they like it or don't like it, whether they want to lend their energy to it or not or what, you know. — Jerry Garcia

And for me there's still more material than 20 lifetimes that I can use up. — Jerry Garcia

You don't want to be the best at what you do, you want to be the only one. — Jerry Garcia

Sometimes you have to be clever. — Jerry Garcia

You need to have many points of reference; many places to touch down and make contact with. — 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. — Jerry Garcia

I think The Grateful Dead kind of represents the spirit of being able to go out and have an adventure in America at large. — Jerry Garcia

The world has to tell us. In other words, we don't have an agenda or a battle plan or a map or a direction or anything. We're just going along, and our world is telling us. — Jerry Garcia

Nothing left to do but smile. — Jerry Garcia

It's a joke. Greed and the desire to take drugs are two separate things. If you want to separate the two, the thing you do is make drugs legal. Accept the reality that people do want to change their consciousness, and make an effort to make safer, healthier drugs. — Jerry Garcia

With the recognition comes additional responsibility, because then we're no longer a one-shot. We're now part of the environment. — Jerry Garcia

Magic is what we do, music is how we do it. — Jerry Garcia

Seeing sound, the high order stuff that's not audible still affects how everything else behaves. There might be a visual metaphor for that somewhere. — 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. — Jerry Garcia

I'm shopping around for something to do that no one will like. — 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. — Jerry Garcia

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? — Jerry Garcia

Technology didn't just go, clunk. It was this early disease, starting with a plow, I guess, or something like that, the first tool that made it so you could do more things. The first domesticated animal, or the first wheel. — Jerry Garcia

Life Lessons by Jerry Garcia

1. Jerry Garcia taught us to stay true to our passions and dreams, no matter what anyone else says. He followed his own path, and it led him to great success and joy.
2. He also showed us the importance of collaboration and teamwork. He was part of the Grateful Dead, a band that was only successful because of their collective efforts.
3. Finally, Jerry Garcia showed us the power of staying positive and having a good attitude. He was known for his upbeat and optimistic outlook, which helped him to stay focused and motivated.