Top 266 Quotes & Sayings by Van Morrison - Page 3

The trip had become boring. It wasn't exciting anymore to totally be a singer/songwriter because it wasn't working for me.

I don't like to wonder about it-I just like to do it. That's what I mean about the image stuff and all that. There's far too much emphasis being placed on that kind of stuff... the whole emphasis on what does it mean? Everybody has their own particular vision.

I never, ever said that I was a nice guy.

Once you start to analyze it [Joyous Sound], you've completely lost it. That one just came.

I also like to do physical things. I like swimming a lot. I like traveling. Not touring traveling but just plain traveling. I also read a lot. Reading takes up most of my time.

I'd much prefer to hear somebody like Ed Thigpen [drummer with New York session group Stuff, and featured on innumerable hits] take a solo. I mean, that's what it is. I'd much rather hear that than the jazz/rock thing because it's blowing an aspect of jazz that I really like...the level where you can snap your fingers to it and you can groove to it. You can do anything to it.

I just wanted to have a look at my whole musical career, get right back to when I started and why I started doing it in the first place.

There's no difference between lyrics and poetry. Words are words. The only difference is the people who are in academic positions and call themselves poets and have an academic stance. They've got something to lose if they say it's all poetry; if there's not music to it, and you have to wear a certain kind of checkered shirt or something like that. It's all the same. Lyrics are lyrics, poetry is poetry, lyrics are poetry, and poetry is lyrics. They are interchangeable to me.

All the girls walk by dressed up for each other, and the boys do the boogie woogie on the corner of the street.

I'm talking about noise rock. I don't think that noise rock element belongs in jazz. It's not for me anyway; it just doesn't fit.

In the media, a reviewer has his personal vision but it's passed along to a million readers or whatever. He might think that this particular song sounds like Jo Blow. Or like a Bo Diddley record that he heard six years ago. But the artist who made the record may never have even heard the Bo Diddley song. We all respond differently.

When I think of that dear rugged cross where the dear Saviour gave his all... When I feel like I'm on my last go round, see me through.

In the gentle evening freeze, by the whispering shady trees I will find sanctuary in the Lord.

Enlightenment, don't know what it is. It's up to you, the way you think.

The Eternal Kansas City song came from a dream sequence. It was actually kind of weird. I had this dream about a Kansas City type of thing while I was up at Stevie Winwood's place near Cheltenham, in Britain. I went into this small town and I was walking along and this dream thing was still in my head.

It will make you feel good, and it will make you feel whole, when the spirit moves you and it fills you through and through.

Way over on the railroad, Tomorrow all the tipping trucks will unload together, Every scrapbook stuck with glue, And I'll stand beside you, Beside you, child.

It's not that big a mystery about types. It's not even that big a mystery why so many people are picking up on things now. It's like we were talking about the primitive thing before and all that. Nothing has really changed much. The things that have changed are like we're on the noon now. There are more buildings now. But we're still basically two monkeys sitting here.

At the end of the day, we should give thanks and pray, to the one, to the one.

[Jazz musicians] couldn't cut rock. I had to be more limited and specific about what I was doing.

[Being alcoholic] you're either too high or you're too low. I mean, I was always looking for the bell to ring. I was always waiting for that bell.

When you perform live, it's a different trip - it's different energy. I just felt a conflict between both of the trips. I was trying to evaluate what it meant for me to be a singer/songwriter and what that whole thing all meant.

And I want to rock your gypsy soul Just like way back in the days of old And magnificently we will fold into the mystic

I think we're going a bit too fast at the minute. The rate we're going is like we're going over the edge of the hill.

I've been in America for almost ten years. I've had many parts of the American experience. I've been all over this country and seen many different parts of it. It's just that I'm not an American. I've never become an American. I'm talking about the whole thing-psychologically, citizenship, the whole trip. Of course I've definitely been influenced by America-I'm definitely influenced by the music and the culture.

I like [George] Benson because I just like it. I like that kind of style. I don't like the broken up kind of style. I don't like where you play for 16 bars and then break it up into what somebody's version of what birds twittering sounds like, or what the sound of the city is, or what New York sounds like.

We might think that we're really intellectual and we're going to check out the library to research the meaning every time somebody puts out a new record. It's still primitive stuff. It's the same now as it was at the beginning. It's no different now. Rock 'n' roll is spirit music-it's just coming through people.

The summer breeze was blowing on your face Within your violet you treasure your summery words And as the shiver from my neck down to my spine Ignited me in daylight and nature in the garden

I'm a dweller of the threshold and I'm waiting at the door, and I'm standing in the darkness, I don't want to wait no more.

The way I was singing the songs was jazz

When you start to analyze [rock 'n' roll], it's only because you don't understand it. You're just not connecting with it once you have to start analyzing it.

Jazz comes from a tradition where it swings. Swing was the main ingredient of jazz. And once it loses the swing...well, that's it.

I forgot that love existed, troubled in my mind. Heartache after heartache, worried all the time. I forgot that love existed Then I saw the light Everyone around me make everything alright.

I was just getting tired of the image bullshit...that man of mystery trip and what have you. What's that all about?

When the ghost comes round at midnight Well you both can have some fun He can drive you mad, he can make you sad He can keep you from the sun When they take him down, he'll be both safe and sound And the hand does fit the glove And no matter what they tell you, There's good and evil in everyone.

Won't You guide me through the dark night of the soul That I may better understand Your way... Let me purify my thoughts and words and deeds That I may be a vehicle for Thee... Give me my rapture today.

I have seen without perceiving I have been another man Let me pierce the realm of glamour So I know just what I am.

I just like any music to swing, no matter what it is.

My experiences with dope were not good for me. I had to go another route. Because in my experience, dope didn't give me those insights.

Way across the country where the hillside mountains glide, the dynamo of your smile caressed the barefoot virgin child.

Did you ever hear about the rock and roll singer who got 3 or 4 Cadillacs, saying power to the people, dance to the music, wants you to pat him on the back.

Become enraptured by the sights and sounds in intrigue of nature and beauty, come along with me and take it all in. Come here my love.

Skiffle was blues featuring a washboard and acoustic instruments. It encompassed blues, with elements of folk, jazz, and, at times, American country-and-western music.

Into the Music was about the first album where I felt, 'I'm starting here'...the Wavelength thing, I didn't really feel that was me.

You know what they're writing about Baby you know what they're writing about It's a thing called love down through the ages Makes you wanna cry sometimes Makes you feel like you wanna lay down and die sometimes Makes you high sometimes But when you really get in it lifts you right up.

I just wanted to stop and try to get some perspective. [ A Period of Transition] it was just a matter of wanting to review the whole thing...to try and get some relationship to what I was doing.

I realized that what I was looking for was doing collaborations with other people - people who can play a ballad, rock, jazz. I was looking for more co-op type things than what I had been doing, which had been completely my own trip.

Going down the old mine with a transistor radio.

Ambition will take you And ride you too far and Conservatism bring you to boredom once more Sit down by the river And watch the stream flow Recall all the dreams That you once used to know The things you've forgotten That took you away To pastures not greener but meaner.

Let me purify my thoughts and words and deeds that I may be a vehicle for thee.

[Jean-Paul] Sartre was a throwback to the existential period. I'm not really so much into that these days. I went through a period of going over things and looking at them again to see what they were. But I'm into psychiatry type things. I'm into philosophy. I'm into that sort of thing.

If I ventured in the slipstream between the viaducts of your dreams, where immobile steel rims crack and the ditch in the back roads stop. Could you find me?

I'll tell you what does impress me: the fact that a lot of the cats who were our idols are still out there doing it. That impresses me very much.

What I really like to do is just do the twist!

If you want to put your rock 'n' roll into mythology, [A Period of Transition] is from the Daddy Cool school.

Any artist is an instrument-and that's exactly why you can't do it all the time. You can only do it when it's happening, when it's coming through. No matter how much you may want to do it, if it's not happening then it's simply not happening.

Whether you're writing a book or a song or whatever, you've got to be involved in it. It's got to come from the heart I think...that's what it's all about.

I just can't stand it [jazz/rock]. It just doesn't sound right to me. It doesn't hit me...it doesn't get me...it just doesn't grab me.

Jazz was always cool. That was what I liked about jazz - it was always cool. Now I see the cats that were basically cool getting kind of uncool. So that ruins what I feel about jazz.

I was like one of those newspapers, those periodicals. There's all different kinds of alcoholics. There's the everyday kind: that's the consistent one. That's what people think an alcoholic is-but an alcoholic is basically just someone who's allergic to alcohol. That's all it means. It's just an allergy.