Coming from a rock star who sold tens of millions of records, filled stadiums, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, this is a strikingly modest definition of success. No mention of fame. No mention of wealth. Just: like what you do, and let it cover the rent. That's it — "that's success."

What makes it land is that Petty clearly meant it. By all accounts he stayed remarkably grounded and unpretentious throughout a genuinely huge career, famously fighting his own record label over pricing he thought was unfair to his fans, and sticking close to straightforward, unfussy rock and roll rather than chasing every trend. The plainness of this quote matches the plainness of the man — it isn't false modesty from someone performing humility for an interviewer.

The quiet trick in the sentence is the word "hopefully." He doesn't say do what you love and you'll get rich. He says do what you love, and hopefully it covers your rent — a far more honest bar than the "follow your passion and the money will pour in" version of this advice that gets repeated everywhere. Petty isn't promising riches. He's describing a floor, not a ceiling: enough to live on, doing work you actually want to be doing. Everything above that floor is a bonus, not the definition.

That's a genuinely freeing way to measure a life or a career. Instead of stacking your success against someone else's fame or fortune, you check it against something entirely in reach: am I doing something I actually like, and can I get by doing it? By Petty's own standard — offered by a man who'd clearly earned the right to set the bar wherever he wanted — that modest combination is already the whole win.