Top 203 Quotes & Sayings by Paul Simon - Page 2

Then she kissed me and I realized she probably was right, there must be fifty ways to leave your lover.

By the time I was 12 or 13, I felt that I was special, because I could play the guitar and write songs.

I want to rid my heart of envy, and cleanse my soul of rage before I'm through.

Nor is it strange That after changes upon changes, we are more or less the same

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.

I've got nothing to do today but smile.

So I'll continue to continue to pretend my life will never end, and flowers never bend with the rainfall.

Life I love you, all is groovy.

I just said, you know, this is a great track but this lyric, I don't believe it. It sounds like I'm trying to say something, instead of it naturally coming out of me, like I was saying something that I already knew. Anyway, I can't remember what it was. And either I threw it all out or I threw 90 percent of it out, and kept a line or two. That's happened a couple of times to me. Not too often, but a couple of times. Very aggravating when it does happen.

I have my books and my poetry to protect me

Kodachrome, it gives us those nice bright colors Gives us the greens of summers Makes you think all the world's a sunny day, oh yeah! I got a Nikon camera, I love to take a photograph So momma, don't take my Kodachrome away.

All God requires from us is to enjoy life and love. That's the whole point.

I don't think [Dylan and the Beatles] influenced me a lot. I think it was inevitable; they were so powerful that you couldn't really escape the influence.

The dialogue between what's going on in the world and what's going on internally seems to be a natural thing - well, it's natural to me, anyway, to have these thoughts.

Take two bodies and you twirl them into one, their hearts and their bones, and they won't come undone.

People talking without speaking,/ People listening without hearing...Sounds of Silence.

The more I get to thinking, the less I tend to laugh.

I feel I should try to reveal. When you hit it right, you produce an emotional response in the listener that can be cathartic. When you're wrong, you're soppy, sentimental.

She said, why don't we both just sleep on it tonight, And I believe, in the morning you'll begin to see the light. And then she kissed me and I realized she probably was right, There must be fifty ways to leave your lover, fifty ways to leave your lover.

I don't know what I'm going to write when I begin to write. It feels like you are walking down a path, but you can't see around the bend and you don't know where you are going to go, which is fun.

Lord, I am a surgeon and music is my knife. It cuts away my sorrow and purifies my life.

I don't really like to write at a desk. I like to write when driving in a car. ... Once you're working on it, you're working on it all the time, and sometimes stuff'll come in the middle of the night, in a dream or something. Your mind is working on it all the time.

When I look back at all the crap I learned in high school, it's a wonder I can think at all.

It's actually very difficult to make something both simple and good.

One man's ceiling is another man's floor.

These are the days of miracle and wonder.

Don't want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon grave yard.

People ask how I feel about getting old. I tell them I have the same question. I'm learning as I go.

...music is sometimes the only benign avenue of communication between antagonists.

The words come. Usually, it's a long time before they come. And then when they start to come, it doesn't take so long for it to be finished. It takes a long time to begin. And then it sort of gets finished.

Instead of thinking in terms of chords, I think of voice-leading; that is, melody line and bass line, and where the bass line goes. If you do that, you'll have the right chord. [These voices] will give you some alternatives, and you can play those different alternatives to hear which one suits your ear. Keep the bass line moving so you don't stay in one spot: if you have an interesting bass line and you roll it against the melody, the chords are going to come out right.

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.

Much of songwriting is simply a mystery.

And you read your emily dickinson, And I my robert frost. And we note our place with bookmarkers That measure what weve lost.

The phrasing didn't work as well.

I like them all. They're all pictures of me when I wrote them. I have no favorite songs.

When I first heard Elvis perform "Bridge Over Trouble Water" it was unbelivable,and I thought to myself, how the hell can I compete with that?

Sail on silver girl Sail on by Your time has come to shine All your dreams are on their way See how they shine Oh, if you need a friend I'm sailing right behind.

Just slip out the back, Jack, make a new plan, Stan, you don't need to be coy, Roy, just get yourself free. Hop on the bus, Gus, you don't need to discuss much, just drop off the key, Lee, and get yourself free.

If you'll be my body guard, I can be your long lost pal.

I'm going to Graceland, for reasons I cannot explain. There's some part of me wants to see Graceland. And I may be advised to defend every love, every ending, or maybe there's no obligations now. Maybe I've a reason to believe we all will be received in Graceland.

The abstract music is just more interesting because it doesn't really have anything to say, but if it is good, it creates thoughts and feelings, and I enjoy that. For me, once the music creates those thoughts and feelings, I begin to write a song about it.

Maybe I think too much for my own good.

The trick is, as I know it, is to care like hell and not give a damn at the same time.

You know, life is what you make of it- so beautiful or so what.

And she said 'Losing love is like a window in your heart, Everybody sees you're blown apart, Everybody feels the wind blow.'

Given all the facts that I'm young and I'm in good health and I'm famous - that I have talent, I have money - given all these facts, I want to know why I'm so unhappy.

I met my old lover on the street last night, she seemed glad to see me.

And I must be what I must be and face tomorrow.

Somewhere in a burst of glory / Sound becomes a song.

We work our jobs, collect our pay, believe were gliding down the highway, when in fact we're slip sliding away.

I regret the ending of our friendship and hope one day before we die, we'll make peace with each other . . . No rush.

Philip Larkin didn't write for several years before his life ended. And when he was asked why he didn't write, he said the muse deserted him. And when I read that, it really had a profound effect upon me, sort of scared me. So that's why I think I have no right to assume that some thought is going to come... But I think, in my imagination, if it is it, there will probably be something else I'm interested in.

I met my old lover on the street last night. She seemed so glad to see me, I just smiled. Then we talked about some old times and we drank ourselves some beers, still crazy after all these years.

Take me. I'm an ordinary player in the key of C. And my will was broken by my pride and my vanity. Who's gonna love you when you're looks are gone? God will. Like he waters the flowers on your window sill.

There are two sorts of people in the world: Those who listen and those who are thinking about what they are going to say next.

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

Breakdowns come, and breakdowns go.

A songwriter's supreme challenge is being complex and simple at the same time

It was the year of the Beatles, it was the year of the Stones, it was 1964.