Quotes from It's So Easy: And Other Lies

“Yes, confidence was knowing I could do anything. But, I realized, confidence must always be rooted in work. In sweat. In pain-good pain. And in honesty.”
― Duff McKagan, quote from It's So Easy: And Other Lies

“Life is not a journey to the grave With the intention of arriving safely in a well-preserved body, But rather to skid in sideways Thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming: “Wow, what a ride!”
― Duff McKagan, quote from It's So Easy: And Other Lies

“Here’s what I believe. Shit fucking happens. That’s rule one. Everybody walking the planet knows that. Rule two: things rarely turn out the way you planned. Three: everybody gets knocked down. Four, and most important of all: after you take those shots, it’s time to stand up and walk on—to continue to live.”
― Duff McKagan, quote from It's So Easy: And Other Lies

“That’s right: Duff McKagan, king of beers, viscount of vodka, count of coke. Champion of the world. Asshole.”
― Duff McKagan, quote from It's So Easy: And Other Lies

“Of all men the drunkard is the foulest. The thief when he is not stealing is like another. The extortioner does not practice in the home. The murderer when he is at home can wash his hands. But the drunkard stinks and vomits in his own bed and dissolves his organs in alcohol.”
― Duff McKagan, quote from It's So Easy: And Other Lies

“Start every day with a clear conscience,” he said. “You should be able to wake up, go to the mirror in your bathroom, look yourself right in the eye, and say, ‘I didn’t lie to anyone I encountered yesterday,’ ‘I didn’t skirt an issue yesterday.’ If you lead an honest life, there are no regrets.”
― Duff McKagan, quote from It's So Easy: And Other Lies

“Maracaña Stadium was the biggest in the world! Frank Sinatra had played there, Paul McCartney had played there, Pope John Paul II had played there. But us?”
― Duff McKagan, quote from It's So Easy: And Other Lies

“The music had the ability to conjure images in my head and help me drown out the tension and noise I was trying to avoid at my house.”
― Duff McKagan, quote from It's So Easy: And Other Lies

“On March 31, 1994, I went to LAX to catch a flight from L.A. to Seattle. Kurt Cobain was waiting to take the same flight. We started talking. He had just skipped out of a rehab facility. We were both fucked up. We ended up getting seats next to each other and talking the whole way, but we didn’t delve into certain things: I was in my hell and he was in his, and we both seemed to understand.”
― Duff McKagan, quote from It's So Easy: And Other Lies

“We had no idea it would be the last time we would ever be able to walk around L.A. without feeling like we were in a fishbowl, isolated and on display.”
― Duff McKagan, quote from It's So Easy: And Other Lies

“Slash was already in a league of his own and watching him play guitar was a “holy shit” moment.”
― Duff McKagan, quote from It's So Easy: And Other Lies

“It was a want ad for a band seeking a bass player. The name to call was Slash. With”
― Duff McKagan, quote from It's So Easy: And Other Lies

“When it became clear that U.S. Customs was going to confiscate my camera, I hoisted it up and viciously smashed it on the ground as hard as I could. Twenty-five years later I’m still trying to get that incident cleared from my passport file.”
― Duff McKagan, quote from It's So Easy: And Other Lies

“When it comes to your values and personality, you are what you do in adverse situations.”
― Duff McKagan, quote from It's So Easy: And Other Lies

“Helicopters—“ghetto birds,” as the other residents called them—”
― Duff McKagan, quote from It's So Easy: And Other Lies

“From the moment the five of us leaned into our first song, we could all hear and feel that the fit was right. The chemistry was immediate, thunderous, and soulful. It was amazing and all of us recognized it instantly.”
― Duff McKagan, quote from It's So Easy: And Other Lies

“During those first rehearsals, the five of us started working up a new song together based on some lyrics I had brought with me in a notebook from Seattle. The song became “Paradise City,” and it started to gel in those few days before our Troubadour show and the trip up to Seattle.”
― Duff McKagan, quote from It's So Easy: And Other Lies

“Izzy, Axl, Slash—and Duff,” she said. “What kind of names are those?” “Well, there is a guy named Steven.”
― Duff McKagan, quote from It's So Easy: And Other Lies

“Steven Adler was really nice, and expressed himself with an infectious, almost childlike enthusiasm. He said, “Listen, we’re going to be great—going to get the feet stompin’ and the hands clappin’.”
― Duff McKagan, quote from It's So Easy: And Other Lies

“We were never any good at communication, especially when that meant confrontation. If we could have developed those skills then, the story of GN’R might have been very different.”
― Duff McKagan, quote from It's So Easy: And Other Lies

“Guns N’ Roses was no longer a band, but the band—our band. These are my fucking boys—they’re willing to fight through anything. I already knew this trip had set a new benchmark for what we were capable of, what we could and would put ourselves through to achieve our goals as a band. This band became a brotherhood under that oppressive Sacramento sun. Fuck yeah!”
― Duff McKagan, quote from It's So Easy: And Other Lies

“Eventually we found ourselves in the middle of an onion field. When you’re hungry and don’t know where and when your next meal is coming, you can eat almost anything. Those were the best damn onions I’ve ever eaten. At that moment they tasted as sweet as apples.”
― Duff McKagan, quote from It's So Easy: And Other Lies

“Sometimes we have to face things, face people, face situations in life that we don’t like to deal with,” he said. “It can feel like everybody is out to get you. That’s when you have to refuse to succumb, make people realize you are a force—but you also have to give and take in these situations.”
― Duff McKagan, quote from It's So Easy: And Other Lies

“Place pain in a steel box and let it float away,” Benny would say. “Pain will always be there—it’s how you deal with it that matters.”
― Duff McKagan, quote from It's So Easy: And Other Lies

“Izzy’s new band also featured Tracii Guns on lead guitar. They were calling the new group Guns N’ Roses.”
― Duff McKagan, quote from It's So Easy: And Other Lies

“On Christmas Day, 1989, I gave Mandy the Halliburton luggage Aerosmith had given me and asked her to get out. I was adamant. And I was keeping the dog. Merry fucking Christmas.”
― Duff McKagan, quote from It's So Easy: And Other Lies

“Axl met me outside the rehearsal space to talk about my reservations. “You have to be part of this,” he said. “Give it another chance.”
― Duff McKagan, quote from It's So Easy: And Other Lies

“(we had added an unruly pug somewhere along the way)”
― Duff McKagan, quote from It's So Easy: And Other Lies

“I always thought death and death alone could ever push me across that line when it came to this band. (I was wrong.)”
― Duff McKagan, quote from It's So Easy: And Other Lies

“Fortunately I never came to enjoy the effect of heroin for its own sake, but floating away on a silk pillow was infinitely nicer than grinding my teeth in a drunken, paranoid stupor at the end of a coke binge.”
― Duff McKagan, quote from It's So Easy: And Other Lies

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“Poor, deluded fools. Because their skin's as white as the rich man's, they believe that they might someday be rich themselves. But without the Negro, Owen, these men would be forced to see that, in fact, they have no more chance of becoming rich than do the very slaves they despise and trample on. They'd see how close they are to being slaves themselves. Thus, to protect and nurture their dream of becoming someday, somehow, rich, they don't need actually to own slaves, so much as they need to keep the Negro from ever being free.”
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