James Taylor Quotes - Page 5

I was a functional addict.

Quart of whiskey a day for months working hard on a long poem. Wife hiding bottles, myself hiding bottles. Murderous and suicidal. Many hospitalizations, many alibis.

I'm grateful to my audience, that there are people who will buy a ticket and come and see us play and who essentially support me and this life of music.

The relationship, the marriage, the commitment, the partnership... This is the holy ground.

It's easier to make an album, harder to figure out how to get people to notice it.

People are making a lot of music and higher and higher quality. I can't say the same thing for how people are listening to music. People are hearing music through terrible speakers, little computer speakers, there's a lot to get back to in terms of hi-fi and people listening to better quality, technically better quality music.

If you feel like singing along, don't.

It's true that I can write a song and not really be sure what the meaning of it is.

I'm often surprised by classical music and musicians. I've met a large number of them because my wife works for the Boston Symphony, and I'm in that world a lot now. I'm surprised at how difficult it is for people who are classically trained to read music or to memorize music, how difficult it is for them to improvise, to just go off and play. It's sort of, it's like terra incognita. They just, (makes noise) they don't get it.

I'm very unstable; there's no stability in a musician's life at all. You live on a bus or on the road hand to mouth and you don't know where your money's coming from.

What I've always done as an entertainer is try to come up with things that people will find interesting, or compelling, or humorous.

I tend to write out the first iteration of a lyric here and then go over here and make variations on it, on the page opposite.

I can't thank you enough for showing up. It's not the same without you.

It was like the top of the roof came off the house, .. He had that effect on everyone.

If I were to try to identify a turning point I'd say that was it - getting clean.

When I cleaned up some 17 odd years ago, I felt terrible for about six months. The only thing that gave me any real relief was strenuous physical activity.

He's halfway sick and halfway stoned. He'd sure like to kick, but he's too far gone. So they wind him down with methadone.

Songs are like myths. Myths are useful because they allow you to cast yourself and your life and your own experience. And for some people, 'Fire and Rain' speaks to them in that way.

I gathered up my sorrows and I sold them all for gold. And I gathered up the gold, and I threw it all away.

I don't get into heavy political numbers because I don't find them lyrical.

I can take criticisms but not compliments.

Synchronized with the rising moon Even with the evening star They were true love written in stone They were never alone, they were never that far apart

I don't find the songs; they find me. I just strum my guitar and wait for a lyric to come.

One of my earliest memories was me singing 'Oh, What A Beautiful Mornin' at the top of my voice when I was seven. I got totally carried away. My grandmother, Sarah, was in the next room. I didn't even realise she was there. I was terribly embarrassed.

In my mind I'm going to Carolina. Can't you see the sunshine, can't you just feel the moonshine? Ain't it just like a friend of mine, to hit me from behind, and I'm goin' to Carolina in my mind.