Being an artist doesn't mean that you're a good artist. That was the bargain I first made with myself: I'd say, I'm an artist, but I'm not really very good.
Artie travels all the time. The rehearsals were just miserable. Artie and I fought all the time. He didn't want to do the show with my band; he just wanted me on acoustic guitar.
Artie is a singer, and I'm a writer and player and a singer. We didn't work together on a creative level and prepare the songs. I did that.
Anybody can do bad work, but not everybody does good work.
Anthony Heilbut has been a guide and a mentor to me. I know of no one who has the love and depth of knowledge of this extraordinary author.
And so you see I have come to doubt -All that I once held as true ~ I stand alone without beliefs -The only truth I know is you
And I must be what I must be and face tomorrow.
And a rock feels no pain; And an island never cries.
Although I was able to study music with teachers, I never studied lyric writing. I read poetry, and I read other lyricists. But they were never writing in the style or the form that I was interested in.
All lies and jests, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.
All I've got to do today is smile.
All God requires from us is to enjoy life and love. That's the whole point.
After all those years of automatic success, you don't get nervous any more. It's really necessary to be nervous and be a little bit frightened. It pumps the adrenalin into you and you really get down there and try.
A songwriter's supreme challenge is being complex and simple at the same time
A phenomenon occurs but because you're in the middle of it, you just think it's your life-until it's over. And then you look back and say, What an unusual thing happened to me in the '60s.
...what threatens us today in the world of computers and other invasions of privacy is not a national ID card but a number of other things.
...music is sometimes the only benign avenue of communication between antagonists.
...everything looks worse in black and white.
As soon as your mind knows that it's on and it's supposed to produce some lines, either it doesn't or it produces things that are very predictable. And that's why I say I'm not interested in writing something that I thought about. I'm interested in discovering where my mind wants to go, or what object it wants to pick up.
