Neil Diamond Quotes - Page 2

I've always thought of music as something which gives the words their flight and their wings and the music often comes first, although sometimes I'll have a concept, a title idea, a lyric idea that I want to write and the lyric will come first.

I'm trying to find the truth in myself. To play somebody else doesn't interest me. It's not the focus of my life. I can get through most scenes and do the acting part of it, and at best, I'm going to be mediocre.

I thank the Lord for the night time.

Performing is the easiest part of what I do, and songwriting is the hardest.

Crackling Rosie make me smile. God, if it lasts for an hour that's alright, to set the world right. Find us a dream that don't ask no questions.

Songwritng is what I do.

All my songs are based on melody, which is retrieved from my Jewish heritage. Melody will always exist no matter what the rhythmic changes there are.

You're alive, you might as well be glad.

Songwriting is different from music, although I don't deny now that it would be nice to have a little more background in music theory.

Touch a man who can't walk up right, and that lame man, he's gonna fly.

Pride is the chief cause in the decline in the number of husbands and wives.

I am, I cried. I am, I said. And I am lost.

I couldn't resist. I went over and joined in, and we just sang the song together, ... They had no idea that I had written it, or who I was. I was just some weird guy who wanted to join in on the singing.

Then come and as we lay, beside this sleepy glade, there I will sing to you my Longfellow serenade.

Worse than bad reviews is to be ignored.

When I first started, I worked with three chords in every bar, but I found that tied me down - I'm not a chord-change writer, I'm a songwriter.

Money talks but it can't sing and dance and it don't walk.

The lyrics aren't simple, either. They're extremely difficult because I'm trying to say complicated things in as few words as possible.

I get good vibes from people. There is a thread of DNA that runs from the days that I was a young teenager to these days. It feels good to go back there.

There's a mystery to writing, and you don't really know where most of it comes from.

Because my musical training has been limited, I've never been restricted by what technical musicians might call a song.

I used to go to my kids' soccer games and I was the only parent who wasn't screaming, because I'd have to do a show that night. It was hard. Moms and dads get more emotional at those soccer and Little League games than at a professional game.

Over the years, you grow up, you mature and you see things in a different way, and it's reflected in the writing.

My writing is different. I think it's better. I think it's deeper. But, strangely enough, it covers a lot of the old ground. Maybe it says it in a more sophisticated way ... but I [have written] about basically the same subjects over the years.

Very often the music comes first.