Once you get that two-way energy thing going, everyone benefits hugely.
— James Taylor
It's probably foolish to expect relationships to go on forever and to say that because something only lasts 10 years, it's a failure.
It is a process of discovery. It's being quiet enough and undisturbed enough for a period of time so that the songs can begin to sort of peek out, and you begin to have emotional experiences in a musical way.
If the gig's going really well, I'm incredibly happy on stage and really feel good about my life and things.
I was a functional addict.
I started being a songwriter pretending I could do it, and it turned out I could.
I don't read music. I don't write it. So I wander around on the guitar until something starts to present itself.
I believe musicians have a duty, a responsibility to reach out, to share your love or pain with others.
Fortunately, it doesn't seem to have made a lot of difference to my audience that I'm as bald as a billiard ball!
Americans work a long away ahead of themselves because of the size of the place. To make any impact at all you have to promote yourself with live performances ages before a release.
We all have to face pain, and pain makes us grow.
Music is like a huge release of tension.
It's hard to find a way forward. When you're 18 it happens in huge chunks every day, but after 20 years, growth is much more costly.
If you're an addict, it controls your life and your life becomes uncontrollable. It's boring and painful, filling your system with something that makes you stare at your shoes for six hours.
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.
I think that we're all totally isolated beings and always will be.
I don't think anyone really says anything new.
I don't know much about God. But if everything does originate with God, then certainly songs do as well.
I believe 100 percent in the power and importance of music.
Certain things in life are more important than the usual crap that everyone strives for.
Time will take your money, but money won't buy time.
Knowing when to quit is probably a very important thing, but I just am not ready.
It is the most delightful thing that ever happens to me, when I hear something coming out of my guitar and out of my mouth that wasn't there before.
If you think my music is sentimental and self-absorbed, I agree with you.
I was in chemical jail.
I think people are isolated because of the nature of human consciousness, and they like it when they feel the connection between themselves and someone else.
I don't take compliments very easily. I think most musicians suffer from low self-esteem to some extent.
I can take criticisms but not compliments.
I am myself for a living. I don't animate a character.
Being on a boat that's moving through the water, it's so clear. Everything falls into place in terms of what's important and what's not.
The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time.
