"I see a lot of you out there are dressed up like Kiss... but none of you are dressed up like me. What's up with that?"
"The only pressure this band will ever feel is living up to our own expectations."
"We write about ourselves because we know about ourselves."
"I'm Layne Staley and I sing like a lark...I'm Layne Staley and I sing like a lark..." (Nov. '91)
"Our perception of songs that we've written...the meaning changes from day to day...to whatever stage we're at in our life and careers." (1994)
"I've always looked for the perfect life to step into. I've done all the work, taken all the paths to get where I wanted. But no matter where I go, I still come home me. At home I'm just Layne, a guy who has intrests that extend far beyond music. Music is the career I'm lucky enough to get paid for, but I have other desires and passions."
"That makes me sad for my friends who have taken their own lives, because I know that if your time is not finished here, and you end it yourself, then you gotta finish it somewhere else."
"The songs are about things that we were thinking and we wrote 'em down, and when you listen to 'em, whatever you think it's about...THAT'S what it's about!"
"When somebody starts asking me if I'm an addict or how messed up I am or just some stupid stuff like that, it's like 'man do you have a brain at all?'Aside from a brain, do you have any feelings at all? What if I started asking these questions? This is really personal stuff"!
"I saw all the suffering that Kurt Cobain went through. I didn't know him real well, but I just saw this real vibrant person turn into a real shy, timid, withdrawn, introverted person who could hardly get a hello out."
"We Die Young is about gang violence. That was something that was happening in Seattle, something that kinda opened our eyes. It just seemed like things were getting out of hand. Incidents where kids were getting shot, and getting their tennis shoes ripped off their dead bodies. It just seems like these kids are dying at younger and younger ages and getting involved in gang activity." (1995)
"It's just writing about things, feelings, not that we're dark or depressed...just as much as anyone else is."
"There's no huge, deep message in any of the songs. It was just what was going on in my head right then. We had good times, and we had bad times.We recorded a few months of being human." (1996)
"I've always looked for the perfect life to step into. I've done all the work, taken all the paths to get where I wanted. But no matter where I go, I still come home to me. At home I'm just Layne, a guy who has interests that extend far beyond music. Music is the career I'm lucky enough to get paid for, but I have other desires and passions."
"What do you mean, I'm a wild front man! I'm jumping all over, I do the dance moves..." (1991)
"[Man In The Box] is kind of loosely based on media censorship. It's only my theory, so it's not a fact or a statement." (1991)
"Why do people keep taking drugs? Don't they hear my music? Don't they understand the words?"
"Everyone in the band listens to different things. We're influenced by different bands...so all that comes together." (1991)
"This is a song about a girl who makes me feel all fluffy inside...fucking bitch!" (1991, before "Love, Hate, Love" begins)
"I wish I could just hug you all, but I'm not gonna" (after MTV Unplugged)
"We were on tour and the songs on Sap were songs that we had written...and Sean, during the process of working on these songs, had a dream that we had recorded these songs. And since they were a little bit milder than the rest of our material, in his dream the record was called "Sap," because it was sappy."
"I wrote about drugs, and I didn't think I was being unsafe or careless by writing about them. I didn't want fans to think heroin was cool. But then I've had fans come up to me and give me the thumbs up, telling me they're high. That's exactly what I didn't want to happen."
"I'm dumbfounded by me all the time. Wow! What a.... thrill.....and a joy" (1994)
"Nobody ever asks Meat Loaf, 'What do you eat? Why do you eat so much? Shouldn't you lose some weight?' No, he shouldn't. He's fucking Meat Loaf. He writes songs, and he has a great time, and none of your fuckin' business. Maybe he eats meatloaf every fucking night, you know?" (in Rolling Stone Magazine.)
"My bad habits aren't my title. My strengths and talents are my title."
"I found out through the Internet that i have AIDS. I learned that I was dead. Where else would I find these things? I don't see a doctor regularly. I was in San Fransico at Lollapalooza, and this girl walked up to me and stopped like she had seen a ghost. And she said, 'You're not dead.'.and I said 'No, you're right, Wow."
"We try to be real nice and friendly to people, but sometimes they take advantage of that." "We survived a Slayer crowd every night for about fifty days and thought we could do about anything after that." (1996)
"I used to walk six miles barefoot in the snow, to school.."
"People have a right to ask questions and dig deep when you're hurting people and things around you, but when I haven't talked to anybody in years, and every article I see is dope this, junkie that, whiskey this -that ain't my title....My bad habits aren't my title. My strengths and my talent are my title."
"There's no huge, deep message in any of the songs. It was just what was going on in my head right then. We had good times, and we had bad times. We recorded a few months of being human."
"I made a stupid decision and now I'm paying for it. My bed isn't made, I'm tired, I haven't slept well for two weeks. I haven't been laid in a month. I don't have a girlfriend. And I have a warrent for my arrest. Being me is no different than being most anyone else, I guess." (in 'The Nona Tapes')

Jerry:

"You should see us on the road sometime by the end of the road"
"And when power ballads come back, we'll get big hair again"
"Rehearsals and this band are two words that don't really go together, kinda like 'Military Intelligence'..."
"Our music’s kind of about taking something ugly and making it beautiful

Mike Inez:

"But bass players are the most important..."
"Backstage is greatly overrated"

Sean:

"Hate those guys. We hate each other. Sometimes we'll get in our big Cadillacs and do drive-bys on each other's houses. We're like rival gangs." (Regarding Soundgarden)
"We've mastered the art of making pretty music that makes you want to die."
"There's nothing worse than talking about yourself to find out that you're not that interesting."
"The difference for me is I just don't sleep on friends'couches anymore."