The 30 Best Fred Durst Quotes

Few people in popular music are as polarizing as Fred Durst, the frontman of the rap-rock band Limp Bizkit.

Known for wearing a red Yankee hat and going hard in songs like “Nookie,” “My Way” and “Break Stuff,” Durst was the king of pop culture for a few years in the late ’90s when “nu-metal” was big thanks to bands like KORN, Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit.

[RELATED: Limp Bizkit Cancels Touring Indefinitely Due to Frontman Fred Durst’s Health Issues]

But over the years, people have often made Durst the butt of jokes. No matter for the millionaire. He enjoys self-deprecating humor—for evidence of that just look at his band’s name.

With so many hits, so many records and tickets sold, and with such an imprint in the business, some may wonder what the now 52-year-old Jacksonville, Florida-born Durst has to say about the world at large outside of his music. What are his thoughts on life and love, his craft, and more?

Here are the top 30 Fred Durst quotes.

1. “I was a kid who got picked on in school and got beat up by popular, athletic soccer-type people.”

2. “I made a lot of mistakes that I’m grateful for, because I won’t make them again and I won’t let my artists make them, or I’ll tell them, ‘Don’t do this.’ A lot of them still make them anyway, but you can’t be told things when you’re doing your own thing.”

3. “I usually find several ways to express myself: different moods, different days, different voices, different things, ‘I’m lighthearted today, I’m gonna do this.’”

4. “I stopped predicting the future a long time ago.”

5. “I’m obsessed by film. I’m obsessed with music and producing and making things happen.”

6. “It’s not about how much movement you do, how much interaction there is, it just reeks of credibility if it’s real. If it’s contrived, it seems to work for a while for the people who can’t filter out the real and unreal.”

[RELATED: Limp Bizkit’s 7 Greatest Hits]

7. “Once you get in a position where your rent is taken care of and you do have a job, you really get to deal with yourself and really become one with yourself. And you wake to your mind every day. That’s your best friend and your worst enemy—your own brain.”

8. “It’s amazing how, over time, a person’s perspective can be altered.”

9. “If you wanna know how not secure you are, just take a look around. Nothing’s secure. Nothing’s safe. I don’t hate technology, I don’t hate hackers, because that’s just what comes with it, without those hackers we wouldn’t solve the problems we need to solve, especially security.”

10. “I love jazz music and sad music. I’m a sentimental guy. I’m a romantic guy.”

11. “When you reminisce aren’t the times that someone’s forcing you to reminisce. You reminisce other times in your life.”

12. “There’s an insecure part of me that comes out of me, I get nervous. I don’t know why, I wish I could overcome it because it gives me an anxiety feeling.”

13. “When I go to shows, I’m really looking forward to hearing the songs I know. I don’t like it when a band tries to expose me to new stuff.”

14. “You know, in my music career there was a moment where the irony was just so heavy. There were people in my audience that were the reason I developed neuroses. These people that tortured my life were using my art, my poetry, as fuel for them, to torture other people.”

15. “Anybody who wears their feelings on their sleeve and has a harder, crusty shell—like I do—is definitely protecting an inner sensitivity.”

16. “I want to clear my mind a little bit and give my mind a little bit of time to breathe so I can pinpoint or at least nail down feelings I’m having and that I’ve had for the last however long. I need to nail them down long enough to actually write about and elaborate on them.”

17. “I love collaborating.”

18. “One of the things that was confusing about Limp Bizkit to some people is that our tastes were very different.”

19. “Our music has always been instant reactive and I guess taking our time to absorb things and say what you really want to say could be much more offensive than anything we’ve ever done.”

20. “I’m always looking for new talent.”

21. “That’s your best friend and your worst enemy—your own brain.”

22. “I’m OCD beyond comparison.”

23. “When life was worrying about a car payment or a rent payment and a bill, you’re so consumed with that, you really don’t have time to know yourself. That’s surviving and getting by.”

24. “Everybody loves the underdog, and then they take an underdog and make him a hero and they hate him. But as long as they can knock you back down, it seems like if you’re an underdog again, and things do surface, and they think this is real, ‘these guys’ intentions are genuine and sincere,’ it seems like they will embrace you again.”

[RELATED: Behind the Band Name: Limp Bizkit]

25. “For someone in my position, there’s opportunities to be anything you want to be, even if you shouldn’t be eligible, and I think that’s left a bad taste in a lot of financers’ and studios’ mouths. Just cause someone’s popular at one thing, letting them do the other isn’t always the right thing.”

26. “When you say something is very different to a core base that expects heavy music from you or very aggressive music, everybody tends to go, ‘Oh, they’re gonna get mellow, they’re gonna get soft.’”

27. “Being in front of all these people staring at you and helps you to dig down and become more emotional and get lost in it as you’re feeding on people’s energy.”

28. “I’m the same guy at that podium preaching to the people on every single song. I’m not doing a dance for you on another song. It’s all a direct assault.”

29. “When I look back on my knee-jerk reactions now, I realize I should have just taken a breath.”

30. “Sometimes it’s about less is more. It’s about the seed. Thinking about this gigantic tree that you think is so beautiful but it started with this just seed.”

Photo by David Wolff – Patrick/Redferns via Getty Images