Daron Quotes & Sayings

It's important not to take yourself too seriously, ... and I think sometimes people take us a lot more seriously than we take ourselves, especially when it comes to politics. Politics, for me, is a reflection of the world I live in. But love is just as important as politics to me. They both exist in the world, you know? And if you don't reflect the entire world around you, then you're leaving something out. — Daron Malakian

I like structuring verses, choruses, but sometimes the verses might be a tango and the choruses might be death metal. — Daron Malakian

Every song I've written is luck, I think; it's luck - 'How did that just happen?' — Daron Malakian

Inclusive economic institutions require secure property rights and economic opportunities not just for the elite but for a broad cross-section of society. — Daron Acemoglu

At the San Francisco airport Charlie discreetly pulled Daron aside and asked if there was anything he needed to know, if he should expect more crazy-Colonel-Sanders types of people in Braggsville. — T. Geronimo Johnson

I'll be honest with you: politically, I have no issue with people, but my beef sometimes is with religion at the end of the day. — Daron Malakian

A lot of times, I don't feel responsible for the songs myself. But that's my job or my place in life: to keep my search and catch the ideas before they pass me by. — Daron Malakian

Does it bother me that some people are burning their own System CDs and taking money out of my pocket? Not really. This has always been about putting the best possible version of the song in the fans hands. It was like selling an artist's painting before he had finished it. — Daron Malakian

They'd read about this in class, how stereotypes distorted, affected, reflected reality. Asians were peaceful. Gays were nonviolent. As were women. Blacks (and sometimes Mexicans) were rarely accused of hate crimes for a number of reasons, but the underlying logic was that they were naturally predisposed to violence and mischief, and so seldom was any attack on whites motivated by hate. Contrarily, it was extremely easy to claim, and prove, that a white perpetrated a hate crime. In fact, popular opinion among the liberals was that conservatives were motivated by hate in everything they did wrong: hiring practices, legal negotiations, and any criminal activity affecting blacks, Mexicans, or gays. If Denver decided that Daron had intended to send a message of terror, then Daron's every denial must have sounded like an attempt to protect his co-conspirators. — T. Geronimo Johnson

I ain't got no beef with Obama. — Daron Malakian

Whatever I write has to evolve around my taste in music at that moment, because that always changes. — Daron Malakian

Politicians use religion, and they get their troops riled up with religion. — Daron Malakian

Music is pretty much all I do. — Daron Malakian

I always want to grow and top myself. — Daron Malakian

Superman told me ... that we needed to make a double ... type of record ... and so I answered: 'Okay, Superman. We will make ... a double type of record but it won't be a double album because ... Batman ... didn't want a double album' — Daron Malakian

I like to watch retarded people have sex, am I alone? — Daron Malakian

Music is an emotion, and I put it out there. — Daron Malakian

A lot of MTV's programming is hip-hop based, and the messages are usually all about bling bling. A lot of hip-hop artists sing about stuff that's more important, but they seldom get heard. The ones who get heard are the ones saying, 'Think about yourself. Make your money. It's all you. Everybody have a good time and party.' — Daron Malakian

Because elites dominating extractive institutions fear creative destruction, they will resist it, and any growth that germinates under extractive institutions will be ultimately short lived. — Daron Acemoglu

Where was innovation to come from? We have argued that innovation comes from new people with new ideas, developing new solutions to old problems. In Rome the people doing the producing were slaves and, later, semi-servile coloni with few incentives to innovate, since it was their masters, not they, who stood to benefit from any innovation. As we will see many times in this book, economies based on the repression of labor and systems such as slavery and serfdom are notoriously noninnovative. This is true from the ancient world to the modern era. In the United States, for example, the northern states took part in the Industrial Revolution, not the South. Of course slavery and serfdom created huge wealth for those who owned the slaves and controlled the serfs, but it did not create technological innovation or prosperity for society. N — Daron Acemoglu

On the right was a collection of mailboxes, maybe twenty, several of which Daron had met in a previous life with an aluminum Louisville slugger, as well as several blue boxes labeled COUNTY EXAMINER, a few of which had not recovered from their own interrogations, that local version of the great American pastime. D'aron, much to his credit, he'd once thought, was only blowing off steam, and never once - not even one time - cracked lip when the others asked, Who writes Gulls anyway, and when they get a letter, who reads it to them? He now wondered how much of his fear about coming back here was actually guilt, and how much of the guilt was fear - nothing was as it seemed. — T. Geronimo Johnson

I don't think when I'm doing music. Things just happen. I've even taken my clothes off while performing. But then I'm so shy that I can't even take my clothes off in the dressing room, even though it's just the other guys in the band in here with me. It's really weird. — Daron Malakian

I was always searching for something bigger, faster and better, and Slayer came up with that. — Daron Malakian

There's no rule that says you have to make records constantly, like clockwork, to continue being who you are. — Daron Malakian

Masturbation is great for the right arm — Daron Malakian

Finally, as was their way, as Daron had learned in Berzerkeley, a group of miscellaneous white people arrived to involve themselves in affairs none of their concern. This particular group was a brightly colored rainbow coalition (in dress only), complete with rainbow posters and matching rainbow shirts - So cute, said his mom - and the chanting of slogans such as, Equal Rights for All, Abolish Reenactments, and States' Rights = Slaves, Right? — T. Geronimo Johnson

But given the changes that had already taken place in economic and political institutions, long-run repression was not a solution in England. The Peterloo Massacre would remain an isolated incident. Following the riot, the political institutions in England gave way to the pressure, and the destabilizing threat of much wider social unrest, — Daron Acemoglu

You put too many songs on your record, and it ends up like a family with too many kids: some of them get neglected. — Daron Malakian

I guess you'd say I'm a gearhead. It's not just guitars; I have five or six drum sets, a bunch of keyboards ... It's like Guitar Center exploded, and all the cool stuff dropped in my backyard. I'm a really lucky guy, I have to admit. — Daron Malakian

In the Middle East in the summertime, to keep cool, a lot of people sleep on the rooftops. — Daron Malakian

Bay in January 1788 under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip. On January 26, now celebrated as Australia Day, they set up camp in Sydney Cove, the heart of the modern city of Sydney. — Daron Acemoglu

As a musician, I don't think I'm the greatest guitar player. I'm a bigger fan of the drums than I am the guitar; I just happen to play guitar. I play drums almost every day at my house. I wrote a lot of songs behind the drum kit, just having the music and vocals in my head and playing the rhythm. — Daron Malakian

I would never cancel a tour unless I had real reasons and personal things that require my undivided attention. — Daron Malakian

It was nearly midnight when Daron sat down next to his friends again. They looked pleasantly tired. He was about to ask them if they were enjoying themselves when his father opened the back door and whistled for him. His parents were alone in the kitchen. His father studied his face, his mother was straightening the canisters, her back to them, but her posture belied where her attention lay. Call it off, son. How do you mean? D'aron, I don't want to keep you from your friends or have a big discussion about this. Whatever you was planning, call it off. — T. Geronimo Johnson

Why don't presidents fight the war? - Why do they always send the poor? — Daron Malakian

Other kids would take their parents to the toy store and I'd take my mom to the record store. — Daron Malakian

Robert Murray M'Cheyne, Scottish pastor and writer from the mid-1800s, said, "The greatest need of my congregation is my own personal holiness."1 — Daron Brown

In Glendale, where I live, there's a street called Broadway. The bottoms of the light posts have swastikas on them. — Daron Malakian

People's attention spans don't run too long these days. — Daron Malakian

Pluralism also creates a more open system and allows independent media to flourish, making it easier for groups that have an interest in the continuation of inclusive institutions to become aware and organize against threats to these institutions. It is highly significant that the English state stopped censoring the media after 1688. The media played a similarly important role in empowering the population at large and in the continuation of the virtuous circle of institutional development in the United States, as we will see in this chapter. — Daron Acemoglu

My dad is my biggest influence on me as a musician, even though he's not a musician. — Daron Malakian

System of a Down is the music that I wanted to buy but couldn't find at the store. It's the band I wanted to be a fan of. — Daron Malakian

Once more Mary Jo, Bobby, Kevin, Dennis, Raymond, Lucille, Frankie, Coddles, Lyle, John, Andy, Miss Ursula, Jim, Lonnie, Postmaster Jones, William, Travis, Todd, Tony, Dennis M. . . . On the ride home from Sheriff's office, everyone was again on porches or at windows. Daron didn't call out their names this time, and this time no one waved. Where do the black people live? In the front yards! It was funny. (I guess that's better than the back of the bus, Louis had later added. Daron had thought that funny, too.) Louis's absence was always noticeable. Though skinny, he'd filled space like a fat man on a crowded elevator, except a welcome addition, not someone who provoked strangers to regard each other with situational solidarity. He had, in fact, induced people to regard each other with suspicion, to question the known. — T. Geronimo Johnson

You can't just release double albums and expect people to sit there and devote their time to it. — Daron Malakian

If I was money-motivated, I wouldn't have joined a rock band with three other Armenian guys. — Daron Malakian

You know, even U2 took a little time off, and then they came back with a new sound. — Daron Malakian

Masturbation is good for the right arm. — Daron Malakian

I would expect another Scars album before another System album. — Daron Malakian

Back in the day, when the emperor or the king or whatever waged war, they went to war, too. But that's been lost in time. — Daron Malakian

I'm not very happy. I'm frustrated with human beings. I'm the guy who just wants to smack people in the face and say, 'Wake up!' — Daron Malakian

I don't understand some of the music I hear on MTV or the radio, because they don't mention the times we live in. They have nothing to do with nothing. — Daron Malakian

In 'Kill Rock n' Roll,' the choruses came about at the moment I was listening to a lot of the Supremes, and if you listen to that part, you can hear a melody and a harmony there that's not too far away from what the Supremes would probably be doing, but there's heavy guitars in the back. — Daron Malakian

I just think religion is something ... It could be a beautiful thing for the individual, but when it becomes organized, that's when religion starts taking a kind of ugly turn to me. — Daron Malakian

I'll always be a member of System of a Down. That will never change. — Daron Malakian

Central planning was just not good at replacing what the great eighteenth-century economist Adam Smith called the "invisible hand" of the market. When the plan was formulated in tons of steel sheet, the sheet was made too heavy. When it was formulated in terms of area of steel sheet, the sheet was made too thin. When the plan for chandeliers was made in tons, they were so heavy, they could hardly hang from ceilings. — Daron Acemoglu

I don't get it when people complain that baseball games are too long. — Daron Malakian

Some time ago a little-known Scottish philosopher wrote a book on what makes nations succeed and what makes them fail. The Wealth of Nations is still being read today. With the same perspicacity and with the same broad historical perspective, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson have retackled this same question for our own times. Two centuries from now our great-great- ... -great grandchildren will be, similarly, reading Why Nations Fail. — George Akerlof

Basically I write songs, and I need for there to be a home for these songs. — Daron Malakian

I don't ever put down bands. — Daron Malakian

How does a band like System of a Down get big? — Daron Malakian

I am depressed sometimes, but it's not what keeps me at home or focused on work. — Daron Malakian

Economic institutions shape economic incentives: the incentives to become educated, to save and invest, to innovate and adopt new technologies, and so on. It is the political process that determines what economic institutions people live under, and it is the political institutions that determine how this process works. — Daron Acemoglu

academic literature. Major influences on my thinking include Douglass North, who won the Nobel Prize for Economics for his work on institutions; the pre-eminent economist of modern Africa, Paul Collier, author of The Bottom Billion and Plundered Planet; Hernando de Soto, the Peruvian economist and author of The Mystery of Capital; Andrei Shleifer and his numerous co-authors, who have pioneered an economic approach to the comparative study of legal systems; and Jim Robinson and Daron Acemoglu, whose book Why Nations Fail asks similar questions to the ones that interest me. — Niall Ferguson

The whole town is a Confederate museum, replied Louis, holding his hands up palm out. I'm not saying your whole town is housist or anything! Housist! Housist was Louis-speak for racist, invoked after Daron tried explaining that just because someone preferred a mansion didn't mean they'd torch a ranch. Housist, Loose? — T. Geronimo Johnson