American Musician Quotations

I got lost but look what I found.

I seem to find different material every four to six months and I frequently forget it which is a shame because it would be nice to have a bigger library.

I'm aware of what kids like because I'm constantly in touch with them. Also, they say that a lot of people who write for children can remember their own childhoods vividly and I can remember my childhood very vividly.

This is the bunch of songs I did first, and it's just the type of thing I do. I am a Carter Family girl, so the record is book-ended with Carter Family songs.

But let's face it, I still have to look at my self and look at the things I've done down the stretch.

I wouldn't say I'm lucky, but I do take care of my body. I never drink or smoke, and I get the most out of my body.

Married or unmarried, young or old, poet or worker, you are still a dreamer, and will one time know, and feel, that your life is but a dream.

Normal kids in their teens want to go and date girls and do mischievous things, your hormones are jumping around, but I stayed in my bedroom in search of something.

I was overlooked long before anyone knew who I was.

The skit was very successful based on the applause. After that show, the three of us decided to get together and try and come up with some songs that we could all participate in.

Often people attempt to live their lives backwards; they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier.

I wish to thank my parents for making it all possible... and I wish to thank my children for making it necessary.

You got to have smelt a lot of mule manure before you can sing like a hillbilly.

There is no substitute for jamming and getting to know each other on the road.

But life is tough and if you're creative, it's tougher.

I've always been kind of a loner. Continue to be.

With or without a Social Security fix, Americans don't have enough assets to retire on. There has to be a much larger debate.

To me, this degree was an acknowledgment of my work in music.

I had heard Ornette a couple of times, but I didn't really know where he was coming from until we started the record and it was beautiful, Fred. It opened up my mind.

There's a very fine line between a groove and a rut; a fine line between eccentrics and people who are just plain nuts.

We wanted to guide the musicians, so we could create our own sound. We would never let the band just go in and play the chord sheets. We were very focused on what we had in mind for these productions.

I used to not stutter any. Oh, I did when I was a kid, I stuttered, I had a bad stutter until I was probably between the second and third grade and a guy got rid of it for me.

Rock and Roll has no beginning and no end for it is the very pulse of life itself.

He's a couple sandwiches short of a picnic.

It all begins with the initial tone coming from the cabinet, but EQ at the board is very important.

I knew that we were clicking when mimics started kidding my voice, I'll know that I'm on the way out when they stop doing their imitations.

When I sing, trouble can sit right on my shoulder and I don't even notice.

I am a general. My soldiers are the keys and I have to command them.

It would be nice to have radio support, not that we've ever had that much trouble with it.

The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps - we must step up the stairs.

An artist can be truly evaluated only after he is dead. At the very 11th hour, he might do something that will eclipse everything else.

This land is your land, this land is my land, From California to the New York Island. From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters This land was made for you and me.

Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance.

We put out press releases to tell people what had happened to me and that I had a large weight gain but a lot of people still didn't know. The ones that didn't know were floored. That was a real humbling experience for me.

An employee's motivation is a direct result of the sum of interactions with his or her manager.

You have to get up and plant the seed and see if it grows, but you can't just wait around, you have to water it and take care of it.

You know, I do not think it is necessarily looks, I do not think I am the prettiest girl... Everyone has something that is their asset, some have the hair, some have the cheekbones, others have the lips. But once you know what is your asset, then you should capitalize on it.

They sit there in committees day after day, And they each put in a color and it comes out gray. And we all have heard the saying, which is true as well as witty, That a camel is a horse that was designed by a committee.

Man, I love coming home. St. Louis is actually hard to capture.

I'm saying: to be continued, until we meet again. Meanwhile, keep on listening and tapping your feet.

For the most part, that message hasn't changed a lot over the years - love is still love, and heartbreak is still heartbreak.

The Blues are the true facts of life expressed in words and song, inspiration, feeling, and understanding.

Yeah, they let me do whatever I wanted to.

Don't tell me to watch the beat. You watch me.

Like Jermaine was saying, it's a beautiful day, and we're just glad all of this is behind us. We can go on with our lives. And Michael can go on with his life and do what he does best, and that's making good music, making his fans happy, people happy all over the world.

There is no magic. There is no secret. You need your sleep. A lot of our society tries to get by, but the truth is it is up to each individual to get their optimal sleep amount. If you get less than that you can get by temporarily, but it's only temporary.

Unfortunately I'm not a smoker, so cigars have never been a part of my agenda.

I don't meditate before I play or compose, but I see playing and composing as meditative acts.

We were delighted to have Nigel as a producer. The only problem is that Nigel is so famous that he seems to dominate most interviews without being there.

We have to be able to criticise what we love, to say what we have to say 'cause if your not trying to make something better, than as far as I can tell, you are just in the way.

At the same time, I definitely want to expand my fan base but not at the expense of prostituting my music or heart.

For my own part I continue of the same Disposition.

I've always thought of myself as being extremely lucky. The idea is to keep that luck going. Headlining the Stanley was a real kick. I think it's the type of thing I could get used to.

The sound of the orchestra is one of the most magnificent musical sounds that has ever existed.

The month of September is Women in Jazz, so I'm doing jazz there in September. I'm in for the duration.

We've accumulated a lot of things over the years and many things from our grandmother. Hopefully it'll be all right. I really don't want to cry, but I can't help it.

Don't let your mouth write a check that your tail can't cash.

Deliverance is about what I went through the first time. And I chalk it up as a learning experience.

If government half a century ago had provided us with all our dinners and breakfasts, it would be the practice of our orators today to assume the impossibility of our providing for ourselves.

You can tell more about a person by what he says about others than you can by what others say about him.

Aww, come on man, I can barely handle 6 strings.

We were over in Europe all the time their posters were up. That's why I liked them. So now all of a sudden they're going to get a band hat on, and say people aren't acting the right way?

We all love musical architecture; there's no doubt about that.

It's great to be able to get up there now and do an hour or 75 minutes of songs they're familiar with.

I like the fact that we have all the teams in the tournament. When I first got here as an assistant, not everyone made the tournament and I think as a coach, you look at it from a job security standpoint, I think that hurt when you didn't have everybody in the tournament.

Even a lot of kids who are gifted can be kids who feel like wimps or nerds.

Oh yeah, I know Johnnie Bassett. We were part of that whole thing.

I think I love it more as I get older because I keep getting better on drums, vibes and piano.

The sparrow that is twittering on the edge of my balcony is calling up to me this moment a world of memories that reach over half my lifetime, and a world of hope that stretches farther than any flight of sparrows.

It was 100 percent music. There was no ego involved, no attitudes, no black and white, it was pure music.

I would also like to thank my father who discouraged me from playing the violin at an early age.

The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, in order to have what you want.

I didn't choose a word or anything. I just wrote the song until it stopped.

I was a pretty good imitator of Roy Acuff, but then I found out they already had a Roy Acuff, so I started singin' like myself.

The first year with the success that we had and let me point out that the time frame changes depending on which decade you look at it. In the seventies acts were kind of expected to do an album a year. If you look at the Beatles they were doing three a year.

Some people come to our shows and think they're gonna spend the night just listening to love songs, and they're pretty much surprised cause we do a lot of rock and roll.

Sometimes those fears creep into the back of your head, but then you slap yourself and think, 'Oh, woe is me! People actually like me.' What a silly thing to worry about. This is a huge opportunity, and I'm excited.

There is not that much of a generation gap these days.

Dizzy used to tell me that I am playing too hard. He used to say to not give everything. Miles used to tell me that too.

The three traits speculators must learn to manage within themselves are confidence, fear, and aggressiveness.

We were like psychedelic folk combined with Sonic Youth's noise.

At the end of the film Val suggests there may be a way to rejoin the living, when he says, 'Let's see if we're able to live among the living, walk among the living.'

I replaced Walsh, I replaced Blackmore, now I just gotta be me.

Many people are in a rut and a rut is nothing but a grave - with both ends kicked out.

In these confused times, the role of classical music is at the very core of the struggle to reassert cultural and ethical values that have always characterized our country and for which we have traditionally been honored and respected outside our shores.

Any art communicates what you're in the mood to receive.

The shortest distance between two points is under construction.

Take time to appreciate employees and they will reciprocate in a thousand ways.

The biggest misconception about us is that we're just a rock band. We think our music is a cross-section of many genres; a hybrid of what the six of us have grown up on.

Even if Scrabble had been invented then, I wouldn't have wanted to play Scrabble, because the highest triple word score in the world would not have expressed how much I liked the game Natalie and I played every afternoon.

I'd like to congratulate myself, and thank myself, and give myself a big pat on the back.

There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell them.

Like I'm in San Diego today and this is my hometown so I've got a lot of my friends coming and I definitely want to put on the best show that I can.

Birth is the sudden opening of a window, through which you look out upon a stupendous prospect. For what has happened? A miracle. You have exchanged nothing for the possibility of everything.

We decided to do some of Merle's things with modern instrumentation. We used a flute, a bass clarinet, a trumpet, a clarinet, drums, a guitar, vibes and a piano.

Children are far more interesting to work with than grownups. They're incredibly honest. They'll tell you exactly what they think.

If I told you the words, you wouldn't believe them anyway.

The secret of happiness is the determination to be happy always, rather than wait for outer circumstances to make one happy.

Another thing that was unique about working on this stuff was that I was engineering it. I used many of the things I had learned while I was away from the band. It sort of vindicated my decision to leave in '87.

When Buddy played, he played all out, all the time. It was a wonder he didn't keel over and die before he did.