American Musician Quotations | Page 3

I get nervous when they start shooting piano players.

I think Bush has a very selfish, arrogant point of view. I think he is interested in power, I think he believes his truth is the only truth, and that he will do what he wants to do despite the people.

It's been like a bad dream I never woke from.

We're here to bring beauty to the world and make a difference in this planet. That's what art forms are about.

It's not the same without Jerry. It never will be.

A man with a briefcase can steal millions more than any man with a gun.

Music washes away the dust of every day life.

If it helped you get your music off the ground, I'm glad you done it.

I always try to teach by example and not force my ideas on a young musician. One of the reasons we're here is to be a part of this process of exchange.

None of them going to treat me bad, honey, I'm too strict for that.

The United States is a beautiful place, you know?

I think I'm better than all the people who are trying to reform me.

I'm not making up my mind about anything right now. Things are happening so quickly for me, and I'm still in the thinking stage.

Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.

You can employ men and hire hands to work for you, but you must win their hearts to have them work with you.

I'll fill those canyons in your soul, like a river lead you home. And I'll walk a step behind, in the shadows so you shine. Just ask, it will be done and I will prove my love, until you're sure that I'm the one.

After you've listened to it, you'll feel like you know us a little bit better.

All flowers in time bend towards the sun, I know you say there's no one for you, But here is one.

I love better to count time from spring to spring; it seems to me far more cheerful to reckon the year by blossoms than by blight.

The writing process for me is pretty much always the same - it's a solitary experience.

We all enjoy the band and what we're doing, but we know this isn't gonna last forever.

If she has a good, strong, reliable father image, which is hard to find these days, that will be her image of men, probably for the rest of her life. She'll look for a husband who embodies those qualities.

Wherever we go, across the Pacific or Atlantic, we meet, not similarity so much as 'the bizarre'. Things astonish us, when we travel, that surprise nobody else.

Disco was brand new then and there were a few jocks that had monstrous sound systems but they wouldn't dare play this kind of music. They would never play a record where only two minutes of the song was all it was worth. They wouldn't buy those types of records.

We had some problems - my children were kidnapped during that time, and it just changed my whole way of thinking, from being in show business and everything else.

We try to say it's creative and in a manner it is creative, but it is a business, because today, with the cost factor in crossing the boundaries that you do.

We were not given any statistics as to how many records were pressed on the blue label. I used to ask Bob Shad how we were going to get paid from record sales and what I got for an answer was not to worry about the business end of the deal.

I was trying to do Billie Holiday, because she was the voice to be heard at that time.

I've always been a guy who's pretty supportive, its just my nature, so I came in to the situation with the attitude that I wanted to support Johnny and make it work.

It never ceases to amaze me that I get to do this for a living.

Our friends in the group Chicago, they just numbered theirs and we thought that was kind of neat but it made continuity from album to album and that was our way of doing it.

They think the banjo can only be happy, but that's not true.

As much as we love playing the small clubs, we'd really like to get ourselves in front of a larger audience. I'm not talking about arenas or anything, but nice theaters and larger clubs.

I should be the one to say what I do. It's just not done that way anymore in Nashville, and I can't do it the other way. That's how our record label came about.

I had to be sure we were doing something tasteful.

The next time you see an outside day with a down close lower than the previous day, don't get scared, get ready to buy!

I just saw metal as another tool for me to use.

There are hundreds of people running around with great voices. If they would study and develop them they could become great singers.

You get what you reward. Be clear about what you want to get and systematically reward it.

The word of the mouth is a very powerful thing and you can say something about someone that is not necessarily true, but people will believe it and it will become a constant reminder and every time that your name is bought up, that will come up.

I didn't decide I was crazy until 1952. That's when I began making a steady salary and could afford to be crazy.

All I wanted was to be big, to be in show business and to travel... and that's what I've been doing all my life.

A good country song takes a page out of somebody's life and puts it to music.

We'd dub the one that came off best into the final transcription. It gave us a chance to ad lib as much as we wanted, knowing that excess ad libbing could be sliced from the final product.

No two people on earth are alike, and it's got to be that way in music or it isn't music.

The simple things in life ground me and keep me focused so I'm able to do a good job with what is in front of me.

It was really amazing. I mean, he'd never mentioned that he played in the symphony, like serious violin playing, not fiddle playing. And he just blew us away.

Writing in other voices is almost Japanese in the sense that there's a certain formality there which allows me to sidestep the embarrassment of directly expressing to complete strangers the most intimate details of my life.

The Bee Gees, to us, was the three brothers. In Maurice's name, we would respect that and not be the Bee Gees anymore.

That incident ruined my reputation for 10 years. Get one Beatle drunk and look what happens!

I don't think you can look for love. All you can do is get yourself in a situation where you don't discourage something that may be rather nice.

I don't like giving names to generations. It's like trying to read the song title on a record that's spinning.

We've been performing with symphonies all of our career and it sounds so wonderful when they play 'My Girl' with the large string section, I want to turn around and look.

The greatest thing you'll ever learn is to love and be loved, just to love and be loved.

Everybody started saying, well, this cat's not as dumb as people think he is.

I drive a lot. Just for pleasure. Sometimes I'll get in the Cadillac and drive around the city or the country, kind of trying to get lost basically. Y'know, just see where roads lead.

I want them to come away with discovering the music inside them. And not thinking about themselves as jazz musicians, but thinking about themselves as good human beings, striving to be a great person and maybe they'll become a great musician.

Well, to tell you the straight honest truth, it was like a Grateful Dead cover band. I didn't feel - and nothing against the guys - I didn't feel that they were opening up like they should. I'll tell you what, with guitar players, Steven has what I like in guitar players.

No thesaurus can give you those words, no rhyming dictionary. They must happen out of you.

But just as I was ready to call it quits, I got the necessary money from a third party, who had been instructed by Bing to help me out, without letting me know where the help came from.

Love and pain become one in the same in the eyes of a wounded child.

You know, they wanted to do a Broadway album and every show was kind of a bomb. There was no music at all.

Prejudice is like a hair across your cheek. You can't see it, you can't find it with your fingers, but you keep brushing at it because the feel of it is irritating.

It's like they had a backlash the first 11 years. I think the reason why it always seems like there's a backlash is because when bands are unknown, they only get written about by fans.

We'll probably have to play the perfect game.

What is hard to remember when you're in the middle of it is that when you get through to the other side, you always walk away with a gift. If you can stand in there and not walk away from it, you get transformed by it.

In the vanity of self-consciousness one feels at a long remove above the ordinary love and trustfulness of a simple and pure heart.

I had trouble distinguishing art from life. I don't now, and I feel much better!

That's why I believe that we must never fail to affirm that we are indeed one nation under God.

Keep on dreaming boy, cause when you stop dreamin' it's time to die.

One must learn, if one is to see the beauty in Japan, to like an extraordinarily restrained and delicate loveliness.

We were using the record as a tool to invest money into real estate all through the South, because we were living in an era where the South was changing.

Each one of us had a little story to tell and each recording was based on that. Lou played all of the music but we both sort of kicked around some cords during the writing phase.

There are stories that people don't want to talk about that brought this music through.

I'm in this business because I despise honest labor.

Our strength in finance has led us to set up an international financial centre with medium and long-term objectives, especially to develop Islamic financial and insurance services.

So it doesn't have to be happy music to be inspiring.

I've looked at photographs of myself during concerts and it sometimes looks as if I'm in a fencing move, with a guitar in my hands instead of a sword.

I am in discussions with a label. We are talking about doing something.

One out of three jobs in Washington is tied to trade.

I just get all jacked up when we start cooking.

Trent likes to record guitars direct, whereas I've always preferred playing through an amplifier.

It can always be transformed into an avenue of information.

You get the best effort from others not by lighting a fire beneath them, but by building a fire within.

Oh, yeah. I know Dizzy. For years he's been my buddy way, way, way back. Dizzy is one of the most astute guys and one of the most learned guys in the world and knows exactly what he's doing musically.

When the great history of trouble is written, my family will stand extremely high in the table of contents.

Anyway, Cat Stevens is never going to make much money out of us.

Basically, radio hasn't changed over the years. Despite all the technical improvements, it still boils down to a man or a woman and a microphone, playing music, sharing stories, talking about issues - communicating with an audience.

There is a growing strength in women but it's in the forehead, not the forearm.

If a person feels he can't communicate, the least he can do is shut up about it.

They're dressing like in the 50's when they come out to the shows, and many of them have vintage cars.

Yes, I'm supposed to go back to New York to do Geraldo, and we're going to be doing The Tonight Show.

I think when I began, I played distortion more than the guitar. The results of my strumming. Now I play the twang of the string, which is a lot closer to the source of the sound making.

We're performing several shows in the Canary Islands.

I have music inside me and I'm very lucky to be able to play music and that's the way that I try to do it.

So in one sense you don't have the classic keyboard player in Yes.

They're not particular about whether you're playing a flatted fifth or a ruptured 129th as long as they can dance to it.

As busy as I claim to be, I've still got the greatest job in the world.

This whole Puff Daddy thing has taken a toll on me.

Every tax or rate, forcibly taken from an unwilling person, is immoral and oppressive.