Neil Peart

I hear the sound of gunfire at the prison gate, Are the liberators here?
Do I hope or do I fear?
For my father and my brother, it’s too late but I must help my mother stand up straight.
Are we the last ones left alive?
Are we the only human beings to survive? -- Red Sector A (1984)

Wave after wave
Will flow with the tide
And bury the world as it does
Tide after tide
Will flow and recede
Leaving life to go on
As it was... -- Natural Science (1980)

Wheels can take you around.
Wheels can cut you down.
We can go from boom to bust.
From dreams to a bowl of dust.
We can fall from rockets' red glare, down to "Brother can you spare..."
Another war.
Another wasteland.
And another lost generation -- Between The Wheels (1984)

...if the music stops and there's only the sound of the rain
All the hope and glory -- All the sacrifice in vain
(And) If love remains, though everything is lost
We will pay the price, but we will not count the cost -- Bravado (1991)

Danger plus survival equals fun. --From A Work in Progress

Now there's no more oak oppression
For they passed a noble law
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet, axe and saw -- The Trees (1978)

Genius is the fire that lights itself. -Commenting on Buddy Rich.

The middle aged madonna
calls her neighbor on the phone.
Day by day, the seasons pass
and leave her life alone.
But she'll go walking out that door
on some bright afternoon
to go and paint big cities
from a lonely attic room. -- Middletown Dreams (1985)

Sometimes I freeze...until the light comes
Sometimes I fly...into the night
Sometimes I fight...against the darkness
Sometimes I'm wrong...sometimes I'm right -- Freeze (Part IV of 'Fear') (2002)

There's no bread, let 'em eat cake
There's no end to what they'll take
Flaunt the fruits of noble birth
Wash the salt into the earth -- Bastille Day (1975)

I set a course just east of Lyra
And northwest of Pegasus
Flew into the light of Deneb
Sailed across the Milky Way
On my ship, the 'Rocinante'
Wheeling through the galaxies
Headed for the heart of Cygnus
Headlong into mystery -- Cygnus X-1, Book One; The Voyage (1977)

No one gets to their heaven without a fight -- Armor and Sword (2007)

To you, is it movement, or is it action?
Is it contact or just reaction?
And you, revolution, just resistance?
Is it living, or just existence? -- The Enemy Within (Part I of 'Fear') (1984)

I feel the sense of possibilities
I feel the wrench of hard realities
The focus is sharp in the city -- The Camera Eye (1981)

All the same we take our chances,
Laughed at by time, tricked by circumstances,
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose,
The more that things change, the more they stay the same. -- Circumstances (1978)