Racetracks are designed to make it as difficult as possible to get around that corner fast. And some ramps, by necessity, are that way, too.

- Neil Peart

The thing for me about Ayn Rand is that her philosophy is the only one applicable to the world today - in every sense. If you take her ideas, then take them farther in your own mind, you can find answers to pretty well everything on an individual basis.

- Neil Peart

The reality is that my style of drumming is largely an athletic undertaking, and it does not pain me to realize that, like all athletes, there comes a time to... take yourself out of the game.

- Neil Peart

Pure libertarianism believes that people will be generous and help each other. Well, they won't. I wish it were so, and I live that way. I help panhandlers, but other people are, 'Oh look at that - why doesn't he get a job?' While I believe in all that freedom, I also believe that no one should suffer needlessly.

- Neil Peart

Drumming completely eclipsed my life from age 13, when I started drum lessons. Everything disappeared. I'd done well in school up until that time. I was fairly adjusted socially up until that time. And I became completely monomania, obsessed all through my teens. Nothing else existed anymore.

- Neil Peart

When Mr. Ludwig invented the bass-drum pedal, that's what made the drum set possible.

- Neil Peart

When I started playing, I played in R&B bands. I played James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding and all that.

- Neil Peart

There is no blood in jazz drumming, and there are no bullies in jazz drumming.

- Neil Peart

The government's only functions are to protect the rights of the individual; therefore, you need a police force and an army.

- Neil Peart

Rudimental snare work is something I've always loved.

- Neil Peart

For me to call myself a musician, it's necessary to play live, and it rewards so much - not just in the pay cheque sense but what it does for my playing. I feel it through a tour - I feel it at the end of a tour - all that I've gathered, and especially now that I am improvising so much.

- Neil Peart

If I go play golf with the guys, it's intended to be a joke.

- Neil Peart

I'd be very honored to be the ambassador to drum solos.

- Neil Peart

I try not to repeat myself in fills in all the Rush songs unless it is something simple or something I feel is my own characteristic thing.

- Neil Peart

I think, in music, you're always hoping that you'll have a like-minded audience and that the music you like making will appeal to them, too.

- Neil Peart

Even as a kid, I never wanted to be famous; I wanted to be good.

- Neil Peart

Do yourself a favor. Don't ever say to me, 'Everything happens for a reason.'

- Neil Peart

I want to be an improviser, and I've worked very hard at that. It's an art. You don't just play whatever comes into your head; you have to be very deliberate about what you do.

- Neil Peart

It was actually drumming that gave me the stamina to get into sports later. I started playing drums at 13, and when I got to the international touring level... I got interested in cross-country skiing, long-distance swimming, bicycling... things that require stamina, not finesse.

- Neil Peart

For me, drum elements are like hieroglyphics - I think of a certain physical figure, and a little three-dimensional glyph will appear in my mind as I'm playing.

- Neil Peart