Steven Tyler quotes:

I grew up in New Hampshire. My closest neighbor was a mile away. The deer and the raccoons were my friends. So I would spend time walking through the woods, looking for the most beautiful tropical thing that can survive the winter in the woods in New Hampshire.

We need to go back to the way it was 30 years ago, when everybody had Grandma and Grandpa, and we were willing to pass moral judgments about right and wrong.

If I was on an island, just for melody, I would take albums by the Stones, AC/DC and the Beach Boys' Smiley Smile.

I think if you were to really peek under the hood of what got Aerosmith back again for our second life in the Eighties, you'll find out that it's exactly this, it's the willingness to take a risk.

When that second airplane hit the building, we all changed. We need to get back to some serious thinking.

Back then it was nothing like today. So you'd go to the bowling alley. We bowled and you could be in the back and you could make out, you know? And you know how hot it was to make out.

Now I'm way into suits that I can put on whether I took a shower or not, and wear barefoot and paint my toes black or whatever color the suit is. It's very cool to wear suits like that. Roll up the sleeves and just say yee-haw.

I'm really just a country boy.

I have a big ego, but I don't buy into it. I can't live off the ego. It's an honor that I get to be that guy onstage. It's not something I earned.

Aerosmith-one of the 10 best bands today? Yeah definitely.

As you know, I'm androgynous. I can wear a jacket that most guys wouldn't put on. But you make it in guys' sizes, and suddenly they're wearing them. I think styles should get back to getting people to wear things that look so good that they don't care.

My wife and I had decided not to let anybody take pictures of our home because it was just the last place on earth we had that was unscathed. But people have climbed over the fence; they've taken aerial shots. They've gotten my address and put it on the Internet.

Schools, the first thing they cut is music programs. They don't realize how important music is to kids.

The band's never taken a year off. Last August we decided to take one, and three months in I was bored to tears.

We may need to change the way we think. As in Israel, I think there should be a mandatory draft, where you go away for the service of your country for three years.

Why not share with the world the way it is and tell them my feelings about my cat, and how I played with my kids, and how addicted to Christmas time I am, and the smell of pine needles and hearing my kids laugh.

I have to get inspired by something that touches my soul, or rocks my soul.

I've seen whales calving in the waters off Maui, and I've watched my children being born. But music is the most beautiful thing of all.

When people think of Aerosmith, I want them to think of the music we've made and nothing else. I don't want the responsibility of some young kid trying to live his life like I did back in the '70's.

If you take all that I've learned from Joe and all that Joe has learned from me, and you throw all that into a song, not only are you using the gifts that God gave you, but also all the experiences you've had.

There's nothing like an Aerosmith groove

I just want Aerosmith to always give me a hard-on, that's all I ever ask for, for it to be the most special thing in my life. As long as I look at it through those eyes, it will always be that way.

We believed anything worth doing was worth over-doing

Every life has a measure of sorrow, and sometimes this is what awakens us.

I don't think anything is forever, but when my kids tell me they love me, that's forever.

The things that come to those that wait may be the things left by those that got there first.

Nothing is ever a barometer. Nothing is ever for sure except that this band has been around forever.

I'm grateful for doing those drugs, because they kept me from getting laid and I would have gotten AIDS.

I love the woods even more than the ocean.

You have no idea how expensive it is to look this cheap.

Keep your nose to the grindstone. It sharpens your boogers.

I've got scarves and boots from' 1970 that I still wear.

I mean, as long as it doesn't have a bra attached, guys can take a risk and wear stylish things that went out of style 30 years ago. As things go around, they come around.

I wait till the last minute to do lyrics. I seem to work best that way - bummed out and under pressure. I often don't do my homework. But I'll always walk that extra mile.

Throw your hands up in the air and celebrate life.

Just saying no to drugs is like just saying cheer up to a manic depressant

I quit my band in New York City in 1969 and I got really angry at them. I got angry at one of my guitar players and I dove over the drum set and we got into a fight.

Now that I'm sober, I deserve to get laid.

Guitar players never listen to lead singers.

Even in the old days, we'd make an effort. When I'd go out to score on Eighth Avenue, I'd get my junk and a chocolate doughnut. But I'd always also pick up one of those pita-pocket health food sandwiches. You know, something really good for me.

The blues are just a heightened sense of awareness of life's ups and downs, and things that a guy sees after a couple hits of Jack Daniels.

Life's a journey, not a destination.

Seems like the light at the end of the tunnel may be you.

Half my life is in book's written pages. Live and learn from fools and from sages.

My feet have been my best friend for the last 40 years. I've just been a dancing fool on stage, and after awhile you just kind of wear them out.

I'm not sure about the selling part, but I've always found that the things I've worn on tour have moved over to what people wear every day. Sometimes the things I wore in the beginning before I had money were things I put together.

They've been stepping on my toes for years. It's just a reason to get new boots.

Songwriting is a bitch. And then it has puppies

Ya think that the whiskey tastes good? Try a big cup of sobriety - now that is the good stuff!

I'll tell you what's fun - finding the right stewardess and turning her upside down in the back of a plane.

I had gotten one of the first Korg synthesizers with 300 presets.

I had been on the junior Olympic team in high school for trampoline; I could do twenty-six back flips in a row.

If it is worth doing, it is worth overdoing.

I grew up with the smell of the lake and the feeling of the woods.

It was very difficult for me to be the only lyricist in the band.

Maybe life is random, but I doubt it.

Great melody over great riffs is, to me, the secret of it all.

Music expresses what cannot be put into words I like to think, and I think the band makes a good go at it.

Fake it until you make it.

I don't mind being a grandfather; I've been a mother for so many years. You just can't believe what it's like being a father. Especially when you come out of the chaos of the road to getting married and having children.

Drugs will get you out of your own way, but we lived it, and that's dangerous. It can actually turn around on itself and steal your soul, and that's what happened.

Humility is really important because it keeps you fresh and new.

... if you take a risk, two things will happen. People will laugh at you. Or you'll be way ahead of everybody else. And if that's what you're in it for, then you gotta take that risk.

A lot of bands have managed to borrow parts of our style for their music. That's fine with me, because we've borrowed from people like the Stones. But we don't want to sound like we're copying anyone, including ourselves, so we're moving on.

A lot of my books deal with very controversial issues that most people often don't want to talk about, issues that, in my country, are more likely to get put under the carpet than get discussed. And when you talk about moral conundrums, about shades of gray, what you're doing is asking the people who want the world to be black and white to realize instead that maybe it's all right if it isn't. I know you'll learn something picking up my books, but my goal as a writer is not to teach you but to make you ask more questions.

As good as I am, I'm nothing without my band.

But most of all, the train that kept rollin' all night long of rock n' roll you cannot kill. It will live forever.

But you've reached them, and I've always wanted to reach people. I'm the first one to say I love my fans because they love that I took a chance.

Did you eat a lot of paint chips as a child?

Dogs have a lot of love.

Everybody loves you because you are brilliantly awkward.

Everyone's got their problems and their demons, but when we get onstage and play as five, that really all goes away, and that's really all I look at.

Fake it until you make it. Pretend to be somebody until that somebody turns into you.

Good night, everyone- and remember- in this world, if you wanna get ahead, you gotta learn to give a little!

Guns 'N' Roses music was part of the fabric of all people.

I can't live off the ego.

I do that a lot of authors still do not do is allow people to write directly to me. I get about 50 fan letters a day, and I answer every single one of them myself. It takes a lot of time and sometimes it's a pain in the neck and I answer the same questions over and over. But the truth is these people come to my readings clutching these letters saying, "You wrote me back. I can't believe you wrote me back", and I think it really means a lot for them to know that the author values them just as much as they value the author.

I don't buy into the idea that you're not supposed to rock & roll after a certain date. Maybe I should be in Bellevue, but I'm just having a good time.

I get the whole thing, I can't talk about it. But they're talking and they got an offer. I hope Axl[Rose] can see the greater picture and not be mad at Duff [McKagan] and Slash.

I got in trouble my whole life for having a big mouth.

I guess I am a feminist of sorts. I love women so much, and I celebrate the feminine in me because I appreciate it so much.

I hate it when people say that they don't like 'MMMBop.' Everyone likes 'MMMBop.' Whether they like it or not, the song rocks.

I heard that your brain stops growing when you start doing drugs. Let's see, I guess that makes me 19.

I just pretended I was someone else until that someone else became me.

I know why we're here. We're all here because we're not all there.

I like the idea all memory is fiction, that we have queued a couple of things in the back of our minds and when we call forth those memories, we are essentially filling in the blanks. We're basically telling ourselves a story, but that story changes based on how old we are, and what mood we're in, and if we've seen photographs recently. We trust other people to tell us the story of our lives before we can remember it, and usually that's our parents and usually it works, but obviously not always. And everybody's interpretation is going to be different.

I like to come up with the melodies, and I have a lot of ideas as far as structure goes.

I live for CAN-ing other people's can'ts.

I love every bone in a woman's body, especially mine.

I ran into Axl [Rose] at a club some year ago and told him he's crazy, we all miss them, and he needs to get the band back together.

I realized when I was taking care of my problems that the band is all I really care about.

I remember the first guy who offered me a joint in the bathroom. I said 'No, man, I've got enough problems.'

I said the same things to Axl [Rose] that everyone said to me when me and Joe Perry were fighting.

I think it takes a little bit of crazy to make a difference in this world.

If it shakes you in the right places, it's Gods gift.

If they [Guns N' Roses] didn't get back together soon they would have missed their window and no one would have cared in 3 or 4 years.

If you can judge a wise man by the color of his skin Then mister you're a better man than I

If you don't have a dream, there is no way to make one come true.

If you have a candle, the light won't glow any dimmer if I light yours off of mine.

I'm grateful for the road. It gets me in shape. I feel like I'm 25 years old after ther first or second week.

I'm very sensual and very rhythm-oriented and into poetry. Women can feel that.

Imagine taking off your makeup and nobody knows who you are.

In America there's a tendency to write the same book over and over because that's what sells. So in a way, my success in America has come at the expense of what I do. I haven't sold out, and I haven't taken the popular road to writing a best-selling book. I've really bucked the system. So it was necessary for me not to go and find the easy fans, the ones who want something digestible and fast with a happy ending that they can read over and over again no matter how many different books it is. I had to find fans who really wanted to think. Worldwide they all have that in common.

In order to get to the other side of the shore, you have to lose sight of this one!

In the end, I get a really good song, and in the end, I get the hits. Yeah, I'm that good.

It doesn't feel good when you're put down, and especially for no uncertain reason.

It's amazing in the blink of an eye you finally see the light.

It's amazing, when the moment arrives that you know you'll be alright.

It's as clear as the balls on a tall dog.

Its cool when I meet young guys from other bands who say how much an impact Aerosmith has had on them and how much they like me.I'll give 'em that 'C'mon you don't mean that' routine, but in my heart I know where they're coming from. If I had grown up in the '70's and was into rock n' roll, I know the kind of impact Aerosmith would have had on me. I know the kind of impact that Elvis and Jagger had on me, and while I'm not comparing myself to those guys, I can relate.

It's not the COUGH that carries you OFF. . . . It's the COFFIN they carry you OFF IN.

Kurt Cobain, when he did his videos, you look into his eyes and he couldn't even face the camera; he was in pain and I'm angry about Kurt. This guy didn't have to die.

Love may be the best driving wheel, but anger is a pretty good second.

Mary had a little sheep, With the sheep she went to sleep. The sheep turned out to be a ram, And Mary had a little lamb.

My Get Up and Go Has Not Got Up and Went!

My toes are all squished. During an operation, they had to take nerves out.

Never judge a book by it's cover or who you're going to love by your lover.

Once upon a time . . ." "In the beginning was . . ." That's the way it always starts off. Every story, gospel, history, chronicle, myth, legend, folktale, or old wives' tale blues riff begins with "Woke up this mornin'. . . .

People love Axl [Rose] with the original band, they love him on his own but they want to see him with the original guys.

People used to ask me, 'What do you reckon you'll be doing when you're 40?', and I told 'em 'rocking out and kicking ass!' Now it's 'What do you reckon you'll be doing at 60?' and the answer's exactly the same. I'm always going to love Jimi Hendrix - 'Purple Haze' will still give me a hard-on when I'm hooked up to a life-support machine. Hey, even when I'm dead, they're going to have a hell of a job nailing the coffin lid down.