Maynard James Keenan

“Once you take yourself too seriously the art will suffer.”

“If you take different mythologies from different cultures, the names may change and the story lines may vary but there is always something in common.”

“If the education of our kids comes from radio, television, newspapers - if that's where they get most of their knowledge from, and not from the schools, then the powers that be are definitely in charge, because they own all those outlets.”

“The record company's worst fear is that you'll fall in love or get rich.”

“Actually I never did stand up. I'm not that funny.”

“There is still a future with music, because people want music.”

“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 then it hasn't really been a focus of our government to make us an educated people.”

“I think people in general have neglected to learn about history.”

“Prescott National Forest is right on the edge of my home in Arizona.”

“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 would hope they would be our fellow artists, rather than trying to emulate or idolize clowns like us.”

“A lot of people into Tool, for some reason, are not interested in humor.”

“I believe that music is a force in itself. It is there and it needs an outlet, a medium. In a way, we are just the medium.”

“Music is about listening, the more you play, the more the magic spreads.”

“We're five people, five individuals who came together to create something, to make music and to complete each other musically, to form a perfect circle.”

“Everything we release with Tool is inspired by our music.”

“Everything revolves around the music when it comes to Tool.”

“After all, in today's music scene every band seems to steal from other bands.”

“I think everything Joni Mitchell did for music was big.”

“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.”

“Reading is more of a left-brain process, and listening to music is a right-brain function.”

“But I'm a hot-blooded Italian by nature. Whatever the situation you present, I'm going to make something out of it.”