Maynard James Keenan

The idea is, if I can't heal from my art, then how can you heal?

Once you take yourself too seriously the art will suffer.

I always knew that I wanted to be an artist.

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

I think the biggest problem working with me would be that I'm an only child, and so I have an internal dialogue that goes on that I just assume you can hear.

And if you don't live, you have nothing to write about.

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

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

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.

Everything we release with Tool is inspired by our music.

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

We're just four guys and we are enjoying what we're doing with Tool.

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

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.

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.

A circle is the reflection of eternity. It has no beginning and it has no end - and if you put several circles over each other, then you get a spiral.

I can't be a legend yet. I'm not dead.

I always knew that I wanted to be creative, that I wanted to create something.

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

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.

People have to follow their hearts, and if their hearts lead them to Wal-Mart, so be it.

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.

I'm a lot easier to work with now than I have been in the past, for sure.

Shows are really strange. Sometimes you really don't know what to expect.

A lot of names in America and Europe have their roots in Latin and Greek words. A lot of them go back to archetypes and their stories.

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

I have the distinction of being called a media whore by Courtney Love.

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.

Because as an only child, you have your own little world.

Most religious stories and mythologies have some sort of similar root, some sort of global archetypes.

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

Everything revolves around the music when it comes to Tool.

Nowadays, you have to sell, like, half a million or a million records just to break even.

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.

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.

A circle is the reflection of eternity. It has no beginning and it has no end and if you put several circles over each other then you get a spiral.

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

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

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

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

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