Richard Thompson Quotations

To stand up on a stage alone with an acoustic guitar requires bravery bordering on heroism. Bordering on insanity.

I think the reason kids get into drugs and smoking is they don't have anything to do.

I try to look for the good in everybody, regardless of the way they're labeled.

The best thing you've got going for you is individuality.

Amplifying acoustic instruments more than a little is really cheating, and everything becomes a compromise.

It's fun to sing sad songs. And it's fun to listen to sad songs. Enjoyable. Satisfying. Something.

I'm glad there are a lot of guitar players pursuing technique as diligently as they possibly can, because it leaves this whole other area open to people like me.

When you stand up acoustic in front of an audience, you really are a man without any clothes on. And that can be fun - it depends how much of an exhibitionist you are, I suppose. I quite enjoy it.

But music can save your life sometimes. It probably saved me from working in a bank or something. That's a kind of salvation right there.

I like the idea of playing in unison with yourself.

I try to make songs visual and tactile to kind of put you into the action.

I'm always making a conscious effort to be viable and accessible.

I want people to come to my music without prejudice. I want them to get the music first. And who I am isn't that important. If they like the songs to me that's a good thing.

People want to hear about the extremes of human nature. They want things that are larger than their own lives, and more romantic, and not necessarily of their own experiences.

There's a part of me that wishes I'd never said one single solitary word on any subject publicly. Then I could have been the tortured poet, and there's so much mileage in that. But it's too late to stop now.

I probably wrote three-quarters of the songs without an instrument in my hands.

I have to remind myself not to set boundaries.

I just like to entertain myself by sitting down and writing songs.

It's amazing what some people read into songs.

The thing I do, really, is a communication with audiences more than any achievement through records.

Well, first of all it's entertainment. That stops us becoming too pretentious or thinking we're great artists.

What I wanted to hear didn't exist, so it was necessary for me to go out and create it.

As the writer, you're always a presence in the song. If you get close to what human beings are like, you're writing about common experience. We all do much the same things, so if you nail somebody, then you've also nailed yourself.

We were attempting to restore the culture of Britain for the British, ... But the English, in particular, aren't comfortable with their own culture. To be taken seriously, it has to come from somewhere else. So we remained a cult band.

We'd get them back up, and the trash trucks picking up all the debris, would knock them back down.

Lenders now feel the agenda has changed, with inquiries looking at virtually every source of income. Some aspect of these inquiries appears to be based upon an assumption of excess profitability. This seems dubious when you look at the numbers.

Music is a great healer, a great diffuser of things like racism. It cuts through boundaries, and it's a very positive force in the world.

Popular is a tricky word. People in large numbers don't always have the best taste. I prefer to concentrate on songs that are deserving, but slightly too arcane to be in every household - the also-rans, the misfits, the hidden jewels.

Imagining playing the guitar is a slightly looser thing than playing it. You can hear more things sometimes. The fingers of your imagination aren't quite as hidebound as your real fingers.

If we lose this case you're going to see intelligent design taught in schools all across the country,

We're preparing our case for an ultimate review by the Supreme Court of the United States,

We thought we were losing transactions somewhere and didn't know why,

I take notes all the time, too. You know, something terrible happens to you, and you think, "Bastards. I'm going to write a song about that." And then you do.

It is possible that the two viruses could mingle in one cell and from that single cell out would emerge a hybrid virus, a virus that had the characteristic of human influenza moving easily from person to person as well as the avian influenza characteristic being unrecognizable to the human immune system.

I think we stand a good chance of making some genuine progress. There's a range of things I think can be done.

Somehow that came out sounding better than we would have thought,

I suppose the mindset for a band show is more that you overpower the audience. That sounds rather totalitarian, doesn't it?

We're creating our own content because it's very important to be out there with marketing that people say is unique and different.

the prerogative of the elected members of the school board and consistent with science education.

We're out to change America, ... Cats are hiding in homes and dogs are out on the street causing trouble. We're going to bring cats to the forefront.

We got a lot of input from all of our cat friends, ... We wanted to be sure that tabby cats and Persians got all of their demographics in.

Compromises have been made -- this is not being taught in class. We don't advocate teaching intelligent design at this point.

There's not much that we can do. It's out of our hands.

It was upsetting at first, but then you realize there's not much you can do about it. We were very lucky no one was hurt. You can always replace buildings, but not someone's life.

sound like they're being sung to just one person.

A point each was probably a fair result, although I think we just edged it. Their goalkeeper played particularly well with three or four excellent saves.

A thousand opinions by a court that a particular scientific theory is invalid will not make that scientific theory invalid. It is going to be up to the scientists who are going to continue to do research in their labs that will ultimately determine that.

This issue is bubbling under the surface all over the country, but the Dover board had the courage of their convictions.

There were three pandemics in the last century. Most people alive today lived through two of them without really noticing them. This wasn't a major trauma to societies or economies or even to health systems. So pandemics can occur which have relatively minor effects.

This is the kind of surveillance system that really allows us to first identify how far the disease is spreading and then to rapidly move in and cull birds that might have been exposed and to clean areas to reduce the possibility that humans can become infected even from the droppings of these birds.

It's an honor to have this job and, to me, the greatest thing is to be up on stage and to feel that connection with an audience.

It's hard to tell where one tour ends and the next begins. I'm generally touring most of any year. I'm just generally out there doing it.

Everyone agrees what has happened is totally wrong. But the solution is way too broad for what has been discussed here.

It was a good day for the school board, ... Miller admitted it was a religious or philosophical statement and that book is still being sold in the United States and he is receiving royalties from it.

They can't understand what you're doing and why you're saying what you're saying, and that might be the problem with the Discovery Institute.

They've got it marked where the rock piles are, where you're not supposed to get in with a boat. Otherwise, it's a real nice place to come.

Art was my favorite subject at school, and to me the Who were like an art project.

At this point, we probably have 70 percent of our regulatory signs back up, and probably 30 percent left to do. Our street markers are way down - we've only done about 50 percent.

The metaphoric implications are irresistible. If you look at the symbols, this hits you right in the face.

Intelligent design is now being adopted by a number of credible scientists. If the Dover school district wins this case, you're going to see intelligent design popping up on school board agendas all over the country.

I'll try to imagine something and see what happens. But it usually winds up being about something fairly concrete and close to home.

This is a global problem. Eight million tons of litter enter the oceans every day -- most is plastic.

The great thing about this stuff is you don't have to worry about maintaining it. All we have to do is replace it every 10 years or so, and even then our expenses won't be nearly as high as the first time around. We're just having to pay a lot more this time because of our drainage problems. To us, this is just a smart move.

Sitting around home I mostly play acoustic. I've got seven or eight guitars of various sorts, including a baritone. Sometimes at home, because a guitar is just lying around, that's the guitar I pick up rather than actually choosing something. I try to plan ahead for my laziness by leaving interesting things scattered about. If I leave a baritone guitar lying around, that's the one I'll pick up, and I'll start writing baritoney things.

There are only three white blues singers -- Geoff Muldaur is at least two of them.

There is in fact a controversy over Darwin's theory. Clearly both theories have religious implications. But this is not about God.

I think you can refine what you do, and become more consistent. And you write better songs that have a better shape and a better feeling. You evolve into and out of things, and go through stages, but, ultimately, you do improve.

Nothing is plainer than that, if the principles of the church of Rome prevail here, our Constitution would fall. The two cannot exist together. They are in open and direct antagonism with the fundamental theory of our government and of all popular government everywhere.

I'm sure every pattern has been covered, but it's nice to think you might dwell on some that other people don't.

You want the audience to be uncomfortable.

All audiences should be slightly off balance.

To see both sides of a quarrel, is to judge without hate or alarm

They came in the thousands from the whole human race to pay their respects at his last resting place.

Will there be any bartenders up there in Heaven, will the pubs never close?

I think it's absolutely possible to write a song and go somewhere where no one's been before, uncharted territory. In terms of content, I see limitations where there should be none. I know there are things I wouldn't write about, but that shouldn't be the case. You should be able to make a song out of anything, out of any situation.

Every day I'll wear your memory like a favorite shirt upon my back