David Lee Roth is the frontman behind many of Van Halen’s most explosive and entertaining moments. While he is enticing enough on stage, he has his fair share of zingers off it as well. Roth has proven himself to be as witty and sharp-tongued as they come.
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Find 15 of the frontman’s best quotes below.
[RELATED: The ‘1984’ Rift Between David Lee Roth and Van Halen]
1. “Money can’t buy you happiness, but it can buy you a yacht big enough to pull up right alongside it.”
2. “The problem with self-improvement is knowing when to quit.”
3. “Rap is poetry to music, like beatniks without beards and bongos.”
4. “I’m not conceited. Conceit is a fault and I have no faults.”
5. “It’s always irritated me that people say, ‘Where’s the action? Oh wow, there’s no action here; let’s go somewhere else.’ These people will never find the action.”
6. “When I was maybe eight years old, the doctor said I was hyperactive. And they told my parents: ‘Oh, we have to put Dave on Ritalin therapy.’ Every night at dinner when I get the blood sugars up, I’d start ticky-tacking with the knives and forks on the table, and I’d start telling jokes and singing commercials from television and everything. And the folks would say to the company: ‘Now don’t worry about David, he’s just doing what we call Monkey Hour.’ I have successfully turned Monkey Hour into a career.”
7. “Ya know, I always admired Ray Kroc, the man who invented McDonald’s. Ray had a vision of the most commonplace thing–a hamburger and fries to go–but to him, it was just the greatest thing ever, and he was going to make it the greatest thing ever for everybody else, and he did.”
8. “I used to have a drug problem, now I make enough money.”
9. “Music is like girlfriends to me; I’m continually astonished by the choices other people make.”
10. “There are only so many letters in the alphabet. When I talk to young musicians or authors and they ask for advice, I say, ‘You gotta learn all the letters of your own personal alphabet. With music, you need to know all the different kinds of music and everything in and around your given instrument.’”
11. “Van Halen can keep providing the rain and I’ll keep providing the parade.”
12. “When you get something like MTV, it’s like regular television. You get it, and at first, it’s novel and brand new, and then you watch every channel, every show. And then you become a little more selective and more selective, until ultimately… you wind up with a radio.”
13. “My ambition is to further create a signature sound, a signature spirit, that makes some kind of contribution to music in general.”
14. “You want a hero in the music world? James Brown. He brought a feeling to music without really using words. He’s just famous for his sound.”
15. “I take my personal upkeep real seriously; my sense of organization and attention to detail; my memory; my business–I love the business.”
(Photo by Gus Stewart/Getty Images)
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