Top 120 Tom Petty Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “There was rock and roll across the dial, when I think of her it makes me smile.”

— Tom Petty

102. “I’m barely prolific and incredibly lazy.”

— Tom Petty

103. “At the end of the day, you’re just phonograph records.”

— Tom Petty

104. “I think sometimes maybe you’re going to connect with the audience more than others, but the journey is about getting all there is to get out of this group of people.”

— Tom Petty

105. “I’m not any happier anywhere than when I’m in the studio. I’m over the moon about it. It keeps me young, it keeps me feeling like I have some purpose.”

— Tom Petty

106. “There used to be this real sense of community integrity in rock. It has really eroded. Everyone seems to be on their own now.”

— Tom Petty

107. “I never could have dreamed that her heart was so wicked, but I keep coming back because it’s so hard to kick it.”

— Tom Petty

108. “I would never put my songs in a commercial.”

— Tom Petty

109. “I’ve always had a great love for the blues.”

— Tom Petty

110. “I remember things being more clearer, at one time things were more real.”

— Tom Petty

111. “I’m old enough to have lived in a country where, if you were willing to work hard, you could have a fairly nice life. You could support your family, and even get a shot at owning your own home. But you never thought you’d get a swimming pool. Now culture has hypnotised people into thinking they’re really nothing if they’re not wealthy and a Kardashian.”

— Tom Petty

112. “You will never be told when the next bit of education is coming or where it’s coming from or who the teacher will be. That information will only reveal itself after the fact. All that you can do is leave a little room there for the next lesson to come through. Someone will be carrying it. You just leave the door open a crack.”

— Tom Petty

113. “I’m certainly not a Robin Hood, I’m not that way. I don’t want to come through, burn everybody for $200 a ticket and then they can’t afford to come see me again. Plus, I just don’t think it’s right. I don’t think we need that much money. I just do what seems like the logical thing to do.”

— Tom Petty

114. “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

115. “I’m more interested in what I’m going to leave behind me than in making a big hit record. I’ve refined what I do for a long time. If getting better at it means it goes over the heads of those who only wanted to party, then so be it.”

— Tom Petty

116. “It’s always been great to be onstage. It’s really effortless up there. It’s not a lot of work.”

— Tom Petty

117. “I want to be successful. Not just money. Just making a successful record and a successful show. I could feel successful without selling a million records.”

— Tom Petty

118. “He don’t wanna change, what don’t need to change.”

— Tom Petty

119. “I think it’s important to always offer something new.”

— Tom Petty

120. “I’m always having fun. Playing is fun. Music is fun.”

— Tom Petty

121. “I started playing the bass because nobody else would play the bass, and then I got bumped up into singing because no one else really wanted to sing. So I learned how to sing and I wrote the songs, so I tended to get the most attention.”

— Tom Petty

122. “The music has to be affordable. It’s the common man that keeps it going, and if you price it out of his realm, it becomes a thing of the elite.”

— Tom Petty

123. “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

124. “I have never been comfortable being the front man.”

— Tom Petty

125. “I can’t crawl any further. You never crawled for me.”

— Tom Petty

126. “The truth is that if you play on TV there is always a sponsor. There is no way around it. I’ve already passed on so much money I don’t worry about it anymore.”

— Tom Petty

127. “I like making money like anybody else, and I’m paid well, but I think there is a point at which you can out-price your audience or your base.”

— Tom Petty

128. “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

129. “If 20,000 people start to sing, you tend to go along with it.”

— Tom Petty

130. “I’m actually better on the guitar than when I started, I think, because I’ve had so much time with it and I still practice and I love to do it and I love to sing.”

— Tom Petty

131. “If I’d had to work at Taco Bell I’d have still been out at night trying to play music.”

— Tom Petty

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

— Tom Petty

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

— Tom Petty