Quotes By Maynard James Keenan

The process that we go through in recording with Tool is very organic, but at the same time it is very thought out. There is a very left-brain process of dissecting what we're doing and drawing from source material; it's very research oriented and esoteric.

At some point, if you're lucky, you realize you're not the story. You're part of the story. The story is much bigger than you.

Actors have these delicate appendages called Egos.

I needed to get it out. It was that tipping point where you either become a serial killer or a rock star.

I see a lot of patterns in our behavior as a nation that parallel a lot of other historical processes.

There were a lot of choices to make and I always picked artist. I never once picked doctor, lawyer, firemen or something like that. It was always artist.

Just in general, any government throughout history hasn't really wanted its people to be educated, because then they couldn't control them as easily.

But you know, I'm the negative-Nancy, curmudgeon, glass-half-empty-with-a-leak-in-it guy - which is basically the fuel that fires me up anyway. Without that, we wouldn't have me.

This sort of behavior is left to the psychotic, dogmatic, fundamentalist believers you see on your TV everyday letting off bombs and killing people in the name of God. Beliefs are dangerous. Beliefs allow the mind to stop functioning. A non-functioning mind is clinically dead. Believe in nothing.

Because artists can be extremely eccentric and insane, and unfortunately, the people they hurt the most are the people that are closest to them.

For me, life is writing and I can do it anywhere. It doesn't matter where I am. I listen. I write. I live.

If you want to get your soul to heaven, trust in me. Don't judge or question. You are broken now, but faith can heal you. Just do everything I tell you to do.

I've always had an affinity for growing things.

I think the media made Manson, turned him into some larger than life figure and surrounded him with mystery and some shady glamour.

Adam does most of the work when it comes to videos and he basically does the same as I do with the lyrics. The videos are his visual interpretations of our music.

Cold silence has a tendency to atrophy any sense of compassion between supposed lovers, between supposed brothers.

The army influences everything I do. Certainly it teaches you discipline, which is a necessary element of development. I think there's more of a collaborative understanding in the band because of that.

I just hope that our fans are people who are inspired by music, and just use our music as a background or inspiration for whatever it is they do.

I'm a pessimist. But I'm a pessimist with a sense of responsibility.

Liar, lawyer, mirror show me. What's the difference?