Though, since the first record, I've dramatically changed my expectations for our records.

There's an inherent thing in me where, if things are going too smooth, I'll sabotage the hell out of them, just to make the music more of a sanctuary.

Reactive arthritis is something I've been dealing with for nearly a year.

Touring doesn't kill me and I can handle it.

We never considered ourselves to be a good band or anything, we just thought we were playing for fun and we wanted to play music that sounded like Black Sabbath or Soundgarden or the music we were into at that time.

It makes it hard to get over a certain period of your life when you are constantly revisiting it every night.

So I went and visited a doctor and he diagnosed me with reactive arthritis.

There are no big groupie fans or anything.

I have not really experienced any significant conflict with anyone in regard to my choice to be vegan, although going out to eat is hard sometimes.

None of us are really dumb and none of us are really smart. We're in the middle.

I get very anxious and am scared in crowds and things like that.

I have never had a social life, don't ever want one because it's boring. I'm just not very good with people, and you meet people every night who expect you to be this rock star with these developed social skills, which I don't have.

With our first two records we backed ourselves into a hole musically.

I start sweating and shaking and having panic attacks if I am not at home.

We were perceived as a post-grunge band.

We were really motivated to do something with this record overseas, even though I hate touring.

Kinda when I stopped eating was on our second album, just as it felt like everything was so out of control.

The touring for this album was definitely going to be the most intense touring we've done.

I wrote... Neon Ballroom in that time where I hated music, really everything about it, I hated it.

I am very scared of being outside my home for long periods of time.

I try to stay positive by focusing on how much I'll appreciate my health if I get better.

Though, since the first record, I've dramatically changed my expectations for our records.

Basically, the reason I'm vegan is because when I was about 16 or 17 years old, I began to understand that we don't need to contribute to the killing and exploitation of animals to feed our bodies correctly.

We met The Cult and were talking to them for a while. We went a few places with Offspring.

I know if I don't tour people will forget the record and you run a high risk of the record failing.

I'm lucky the arthritis happened at the time that it did because of the record.

I think I definitely got scared by the second or third time a doctor told me I was dying.

I am doing everything humanly possible to try and get well, but lately things have just kept getting worse.

I'm always active in trying to educate people when it comes to eating animal products, testing on animals, and the health benefits of being vegan, although I'm probably not the best person to be talking about the latter at the moment.

It just makes everything more pleasurable when you've got someone that emotionally is there to rely on.

I have a theory because I was being beaten up a lot by people outside of school, it was almost like if I could make myself sick enough they'd take sympathy on me.

I never really paid attention to sales until the second record.

When we first began and I was 14, my influences were the stuff that was in my parent's record collection like Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin.

There was three or four years of my life where I hated myself and you know, would have quite happily ended it.

I had to try and find a way to express happiness without sounding corny.

People don't understand sarcasm, like, they take everything too seriously. People need to lighten up and go ice skating.

To free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves - there lies the great, singular power of self-respect.

Lucas attended a conference on rational expectations at the University of Minnesota in the spring of 1973. The day after the conference, I received a call from Pittsburgh.

Let your dreams outgrow the shoes of your expectations.

Holidays in general breed unrealistic expectations. The minute you start wondering, 'is it going to be wonderful enough?,' it never will be.

I think my expectations for myself are much more severe and much more direct. You can't work on a film for six years without being your own toughest critic. So you can't really be distracted by the expectations based on your previous performance.

I believe every chess player senses beauty, when he succeeds in creating situations, which contradict the expectations and the rules, and he succeeds in mastering this situation.

They flooded liquidity in the marketplace but the mortgage rate is based much more on expectations of inflation. So if the average investor believes that there is inflation coming, they'll move that rate up.

I'd rather play here in this small bar and just do a good show. Because it's fun and there's no expectations, it's encouragement to be different, do something new.

I do my best not to have any expectations when I go into a movie because it's not fair.

Dreaming is one thing, and working towards the dream is one thing, but working with expectations in mind is very self-defeating.

Don't show off every day, or you'll stop surprising people. There must always be some novelty left over. The person who displays a little more of it each day keeps up expectations, and no one ever discovers the limits of his talent.

The people who don't like it tend to dislike it intensely. That's unfortunate, but not surprising when one deliberately goes against audience expectations.

We will not fail your expectations of us as a new nation dedicated to peace, democracy, and freedom.