Paul Westerberg Quotes

I would like to be called an inspiration to people, not a role model - because I make mistakes like everybody else. When I'm offstage, I'm just like everybody else.

The degree of sympathy we feel regarding another's fiasco is directly proportional to how easy or difficult it is for us to imagine ourselves, under like circumstances, making a similar mistake.

Nobody wants to watch perfection.

Successful people are not interesting. I feel for the losers. That's where my heart lies.

I chose to present myself as one who comes from among the people, and I can be touched by their pain because I have my own.

We have been trained to broadcast our successes and hide our failures. But the truth is this: our failures humanise us, and they connect us to one another.

I want to be relatable. I want to be the guy that people root for.

There's room for role models who make mistakes.

I didn't want to just watch a woman who was getting it right all the time. We're not perfect.

Losers are more like the rest of us. They make mistakes they can't take back.

I think it's refreshing when the people you're looking up to mess up just like you do, but somehow, things, in their own way, work out.

You can relate to someone with a flaw.

You can always get sympathy by using the word small. With little industries you feel as you do about a little puppy.

Failure and well-disguised cowardice are more human and more beloved.

It’s amazing how lonely you can feel and like nobody understands…The moment you are vulnerable, someone always reaches out….They go through the same things. I want them to feel comfortable knowing that I have flaws as wells. I want them to know those flaws. I’m afraid of the pedestal…I want to be a peer to my fans

The delicate and infirm go for sympathy, not to the well and buoyant, but to those who have suffered like themselves.

Being honest about where you come from and what your story is is the only way to connect to other people, to really connect with them.

I think we have a tendency to support the underdogs.

... the approach of admitting our errors, besides being most true to a gospel of grace, is also most effective at expressing who we are. Propaganda turns people off; humbly admitting mistakes disarms.

I did this campaign that was called "Back to the Basics" where I went back to the street, went back to my block, and really felt the people. We've got to go back to that sometimes. We distance ourselves from that and we see it from afar. Some people can't relate back to that; once you're out of it, they don't want to relate back to that. It's always good to get back to the basics, though. You've got to touch the roots, you've got to touch those people. Regardless of what's going on, people always respect that.

Why would anybody connect to someone who has everything going for them? It's the person who has faults that people want to connect to. So people identify with certain insecurities on stage and just by me talking about my diabetes people come up to me after the show and tell me "Gabe, my blood sugar is out of control and I feel you". That's the first thing they say, they say "I feel you!".

What I write is emotionally honest and truthful as the human experience can be, to make people feel less alone, or at least that's the hope.

I think the best way people can connect to you is by being real

There's something about the authenticity rather than the autobiography that makes my story and my pain move across and become your story and your pain.

I had self-doubt about whether my story was interesting to people. I didn't want to write something that was anecdotal. It was important to me that people would get something out of my book. I want people to read it and say, "Now I don't feel so alone," or "I'm going to remember that next time I'm being an asshole."