Tom Petty Quotes

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Tom Petty

Profession : Musician

Birth : October 20, 1950

I think, in America, for a long time you had groups that wanted to be stars more than they wanted to make music.

Tom Petty

The energy of the crowd is insane. Twenty thousand people. It's the biggest jolt of adrenaline. It's very hard to explain. You know the old story about the woman lifting the car off her kid? It's in that realm. You can actually hurt yourself and not know it.

Tom Petty

When you get older, your health becomes important to you, things start breaking down, you've always got a different ache or pain.

Tom Petty

It's very easy to be cynical about the hall of fame. But on the other hand, it's really a beautiful thing for someone like me. I dedicated my entire life to this music.

Tom Petty

When my record company rejected 'Full Moon Fever', I was hurt so bad. I was pretty far along in my career at that point. I'd never had anything rejected; I'd never really even had a comment. So when that happened, it was really just a board to the forehead. But then, finally, I picked myself up.

Tom Petty

I could come home, and I would spend the rest of the night just lying on the floor or the sofa listening to albums. It was like a movie to me. I still do, really, and doing the radio show ensures that I'll be sitting there listening.

Tom Petty

I've been more and more into production lately, and I really, really love that. I love recording.

Tom Petty

In the mid-'60s, AM radio, pop radio, was just this incredible thing that played all kinds of music... You could hear Frank Sinatra right into the Yardbirds. The Beatles into Dean Martin. It was this amazing thing, and I miss it, in a way, because music has become so compartmentalized now, but in those days, it was all right in one spot.

Tom Petty

I have turned down a lot of money for things that would have made me feel cheesy.

Tom Petty

I love doing my 'Buried Treasure' show.

Tom Petty

I would never put my songs in a commercial.

Tom Petty

I love history, doesn't matter what era, I'm fascinated.

Tom Petty

I've never had any idea that what I like would resonate with the audience, and I'm pleasantly surprised when it does.

Tom Petty

You get into your late fifties, people start falling like flies all around you. I don't take life for granted any more. I'm really glad to be here.

Tom Petty

An average show is two hours. And that's usually right up to the curfew or the union triple time. I always feel like I could have played a little longer or something, but it's hard for me to pay attention to anything for longer than that.

Tom Petty

There's nothing like that feeling of having just written a song that you know is 'the song,' and you know it's really great, and you can't wait to share it with people; you can't wait to record it.

Tom Petty

When I decided to be a musician I reckoned that that was going to be the way of less profit, less money. I was sort of giving up the idea of making a lot of money. It was what I loved to do. I would have done it anyway. If I'd had to work at Taco Bell I'd have still been out at night trying to play music.

Tom Petty

The music business looks like, you know, innocent schoolboys compared to the TV business. They care about nothing but profit.

Tom Petty

We don't really make bad records, though some people might like some more than others. And we have never really done a bad show. So I think in a way maybe we've been taken for granted.

Tom Petty

What I've learned about marriage: You need to have each other's back; you have to be a kind of team going through life.

Tom Petty