The shock of any trauma, I think changes your life. It's more acute in the beginning and after a little time you settle back to what you were. However it leaves an indelible mark on your psyche.

When I look out at the audience at some of our shows, I think we are reaching a younger audience... I see lots of people in their 30s and 40s, but I also see a lot of people in their young and middle teens, and that's definitely reassuring.

Rush has never been a spontaneous group. We may be spontaneous in our writing, we may be spontaneous as individuals in our day to day lives... certainly I think am and always have been, but I think when it comes to Rush and our presentation of our music it's quite controlled.

I think we're quite unique in that we do have our own sound and approach and we don't really care what's going on elsewhere... we've never wanted to be part of another trend or movement.

We've managed to have a long career that is still quite vibrant, yet we've never had to kow-tow to record companies who said we weren't commercial enough.

But when Neil called, I have to say that my heart soared. And the reason was, because it said so much about his recovery... that he was coming back to the world of the living.

The shock of any trauma, I think changes your life. It's more acute in the beginning and after a little time you settle back to what you were. However it leaves an indelible mark on your psyche.

If there was any one achievement, it would be that we've have done it on our own terms.

And on top of that, when we work together we have a wonderful working relationship we push each other we challenge each other we laugh 80% of the time that we are together we're very fortunate.

But I think the credit has to go to Geddy... he spent a lot of time in the studio with Paul, I think he needed that kind of focus to be in there to be a part of the whole thing, and for the most part he made all the major decisions.

When we signed our deal in 1974, we'd already been together for six years. When they lowered the drinking age in Ontario in 1971 to 18 years, we went from playing two or three high schools in a month to playing clubs two or three times a week.

Both Neil and I had done solo projects where we were the boss and I just thought that if he was willing to get into it, it would really be a good experience for him.

I'd say we do reach somewhat of a younger audience, but I think for the most part that younger audience is picking our music up from a brother or sister or even parent, who is turning them onto the band.

Certainly after the tragedy in Neil's life, we were holding out hope for his recovery. It wasn't too promising at the time and obviously you get to the point of thinking that that is it.

I think that's given inspiration to other musicians. I know, particularly through the 90s, a lot of bands would cite Rush as an influence. I don't think it was so much our music, but more the way we really stuck to our guns.

I mean, you go to the internet and you can see all these conversations and arguments that our fans have about our music and that's wonderful to know, that people would take the time to be that involved.

At the same time, I've never been afraid of death or the concept of death.

You know, we have a long history of covering different periods of this band's development with a live record... a sort of live thing that would be done for three or four records, and that was the intention with this particular package.

'Tom Sawyer' could have been written eight months ago, with the kind of response it still gets.

I enjoyed art in school. I've always done little drawings and stuff like that. I don't really know what I'm doing with the painting, but I experiment.

I really consider myself more of a rhythm guitarist than a soloist.

I really don't feel the need to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because, at the end of the day, it's just somebody's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They have a particular process, and they're welcome to do it however they want to do it.

I'm not that fluid when it comes to scales and modes. I just pick up the guitar and play. It's all about exploration: just tune the guitar any way you want and start playing.

My parents got me a $25 Kent steel-string acoustic guitar when I was around 12. The following Christmas, my parents bought me a Conora electric guitar. It looked almost like a Gretsch. It cost $59, and my mom still has it.

Of any guitarist, Jimmy Page was my biggest influence. I wanted to look, think and play like him. Zeppelin had a heavy influence on Rush during our early days. Page's loose style of playing showed an immense confidence, and there are no rules to his playing.

One doesn't want to feel too contented; you have to feel challenged by the music.

People are getting away from the whole album experience, it's true. I think that's sad. Maybe I'm just saying that because I'm an old fart. But I can't help it - albums are what I grew up with, and I still love them.

The Stones were more dangerous than other bands of the Sixties. It looked like they had more fun than the Beatles - like they stayed up later.

When I sit down and play guitar, I melt into the instrument. I can play for hours by myself. Playing guitar has given me such a wonderful life, and I'm grateful for it.

The shock of any trauma, I think changes your life. It’s more acute in the beginning and after a little time you settle back to what you were. However it leaves an indelible mark on your psyche.

From the beginning, the series has been story driven - I began with a story idea - but research feeds it.

I don't write drafts. I write from the beginning to the end, and when it's finished, it's done.

Since the beginning, I always loved the game. When you grow up in Montreal, one day you want to be a professional hockey player. When I was six or seven, I knew that was what I wanted.

Before beginning, plan carefully.

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.

The people who voted for President Obama are just beginning to wake up to exactly what they brought in. The 'change' they envisioned is not the 'change' they have gotten.

Religion has caused more harm than any other idea since the beginning of time. There's nothing good I can say about it. People use it as a crutch.

And that's how I start myself. I usually go back a couple of pages, maybe to the beginning of the chapter, and I start reading. And as I'm reading, I'm tweaking - putting in a different word, changing the syntax, putting that clause over there, you know that sort of thing.

In the beginning it was all black and white.

A palindrome is a word or pattern that instead of developing in different directions it folds in on itself so that the beginning and end mirror each other, that they are the same.

Learning is the beginning of wealth. Learning is the beginning of health. Learning is the beginning of spirituality. Searching and learning is where the miracle process all begins.

At the beginning of 1955 only about 60 percent of American homes had TVs.

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

Most musicians count at the beginning, and never count and talk to their musicians after that. They only talk to them at the end of the song. But I would count with them and talk.

What you really remember at the beginning was that you have to throw a budget together. We made some terrible mistakes at the beginning in my own budget that took us at least a year to catch up on.

There is a spirit and a need and a man at the beginning of every great human advance. Every one of these must be right for that particular moment of history, or nothing happens.

I am pleased to see that information campaigns, such as the America's WETLAND effort, are getting the message out, and people are beginning to realize that wetlands loss in Louisiana affects us all.

I started working on trying to sound like June from the very beginning.

The end comes when we no longer talk with ourselves. It is the end of genuine thinking and the beginning of the final loneliness.