80 Inspiring Quotes by James Taylor

I collect hats. That's what you do when you're bald.

That's the motivation of an artist -- to seek attention of some kind.

Certain things in life are more important than the usual crap that everyone strives for.

People should watch out for three things: avoid a major addiction, don't get so deeply into debt that it controls your life, and don't start a family before you're ready to settle down.

I have a love-hate relationship with the Grammys because I don't see the music world as a competitive sport.

I find it a lot healthier for me to be someplace where I can go outside in my bare feet.

Television news is now entertainment, and the stories are being written by the people that have a special interest in them.

Being on a boat that's moving through the water, it's so clear. Everything falls into place in terms of what's important and what's not.

I believe musicians have a duty, a responsibility to reach out, to share your love or pain with others.

We all have to face pain, and pain makes us grow.

I think people are isolated because of the nature of human consciousness, and they like it when they feel the connection between themselves and someone else.

Once you get that two-way energy thing going, everyone benefits hugely.

I believe 100 percent in the power and importance of music.

If you're an addict, it controls your life and your life becomes uncontrollable. It's boring and painful, filling your system with something that makes you stare at your shoes for six hours.

A concert is always like a feast day to me.

I don't take compliments very easily. I think most musicians suffer from low self-esteem to some extent.

I don't play the kind of music that works in a football stadium.

I am myself for a living. I don't animate a character.

Bruce Springsteen's a rock star. Elton John is a rock star. I'm a folk musician. Honestly, I think that's true.

Things started to get out of control when I began reading that I was a superstar.

Though 'Fire and Rain' is very personal, for other people it resonates as a sort of commonly held experience... And that's what happens with me. I write things for personal reasons, and then in some cases it... can be a shared experience.

I'm trying to look at my blessings and how amazingly well against all odds things have turned out for me.

Ireland, Italy and Brazil are the most musical places for me. They're extremely musical cultures and anything you pitch they basically catch.

I'm glad about what's happening to the music business. This last crop of people we had in the 90s, who are going away now, they didn't like music. They didn't trust musicians. They wanted something else from it.

To me, very much of what is artistic is people's very creative and inventive ways out of impossible situations.

I was a huge Beatles fan. We could talk about who I listened to growing up and what my sources were, but certainly the Beatles were a late, important resource for me, and I just took my guitar and a handful of songs, and I decided, well, I'll just go over and travel around Europe and see what comes of it.

It's a real wrenching thing to go from being a private person to being a public person, especially when you're being autobiographical.

It's probably foolish to expect relationships to go on forever and to say that because something only lasts 10 years, it's a failure.

Somehow it helps just to take something that's internal and externalize it, to see it in front of you.

There'll come a writing phase where you have to defend the time, unplug the phone and put in the hours to get it done.

Songwriting is too mysterious and uncontrolled a process for me to direct it towards any one thing.

What I've always done as an entertainer is try to come up with things that people will find interesting, or compelling, or humorous.

The best thing is when you hear somebody take your song and make something great of it.

I sometimes wonder how many of these lifetime achievement awards you can accept before you have to do the decent thing and die.

I don't know much about God. But if everything does originate with God, then certainly songs do as well.

I don't think anyone really says anything new.

I think that we're all totally isolated beings and always will be.

Knowing when to quit is probably a very important thing, but I just am not ready.

When I cleaned up some 17 odd years ago, I felt terrible for about six months. The only thing that gave me any real relief was strenuous physical activity.

If you feel like singing along, don't.

Photographers and reporters are mostly after me. They want to know what I read and what I'm like and I don't really know myself, so how can I tell them?

Music is my living. I enjoy selling my music.

I don't get into heavy political numbers because I don't find them lyrical.

I think it surprises a lot of people that I'm still around, you know, still -- that I'm not pushing up daisies, as they say.

I know there are people who don't like their audience or like the experience of being recognized or celebrated, but my audience has been very good -- they don't bother me and when they do contact me it's usually on the nicest possible terms.

I'm glad that I still have the ability to tour in Europe. I do love it.

I think that American music, for me, it's a synthesis of a lot of different things. But for me growing up in North Carolina, the stuff that I was listening to, the things that I was hearing, it was all about Black music, about soul music.

It won't be long before another day, were gonna have a good time. And no ones gonna take that time away. You can stay as long as you like.

I'm grateful to my audience, that there are people who will buy a ticket and come and see us play and who essentially support me and this life of music.

The report falsely asserts that global warming is causing more extreme weather events, more droughts, more record high temperatures, more wildfires, warmer winters, etc., when each and every one of these false assertions is contradicted by objective, verifiable evidence.

Something I do love about social media is how you can expand your idea. You can make an extension of your art as opposed to just using it for promotion.

But it's only after you've played it on the road 20 or 30 times that it becomes really finished and polished...and you realize what it means, and you get the phrasing right.

I think of myself as a highly spiritual person, but without -- I was never really given a religion or a religious experience or a community to sort of subscribe to.

In my mind I'm going to Carolina. Can't you see the sunshine, can't you just feel the moonshine? Ain't it just like a friend of mine, to hit me from behind, and I'm goin' to Carolina in my mind.

Do me wrong, do me right, tell me lies, but hold me tight.

Synchronized with the rising moon Even with the evening star They were true love written in stone They were never alone, they were never that far apart.

To be a musician, especially a singer-songwriter -- well, you don't do that if you have a thriving social life. You do it because there's an element of alienation in your life.

Deep greens and blues are the colors I choose
Won't you let me go down in my dreams?

I can't thank you enough for showing up. It's not the same without you.

I've seen fire and I've seen rain I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend But I always thought that I'd see you again.

Winter, spring, summer, or fall, all you gotta do is call, and I'll be there, 'cause you've got a friend.

Whenever I see your smiling face, I have to smile myself, because I love you, yes I do.

Never give up, never slow down, never grow old and never ever die young.

My brother Alex fell in love with rhythm and blues early and gave me a strong dose of it.

People are making a lot of music and higher and higher quality. I can't say the same thing for how people are listening to music. People are hearing music through terrible speakers, little computer speakers, there's a lot to get back to in terms of hi-fi and people listening to better quality, technically better quality music.

Shower the people you love with love Show them the way that you feel Things are gonna work out fine if you only will.

I've written a number of songs over the years and it's a big part of my life, this sort of tension between a longing for home and the call for the open road. It's sort of like a tug between two families. I even love to miss my home.

The relationship, the marriage, the commitment, the partnership... This is the holy ground.

Don't be sad cause your sun is down, the night doesn't need your sorrow. Don't be sad cause the light is gone, just keep your mind on tomorrow.

The Beatles were a phenomenon, but they were also ordinary blokes like anyone else. I was lucky enough to see that side.

Quart of whiskey a day for months working hard on a long poem. Wife hiding bottles, myself hiding bottles. Murderous and suicidal. Many hospitalizations, many alibis.

I know now one thing only matters in these days... true love... love and love alone.

Songs are like myths. Myths are useful because they allow you to cast yourself and your life and your own experience. And for some people, 'Fire and Rain' speaks to them in that way.

The Test arena is a place I have been desperate to get back to, it is the pinnacle of the sport.

There ain't no doubt in my mind that love is the finest thing around.

I don't build no heathen temples, where the Lord has done laid a hand. There's a well on the hill, let it be.

All invisible from where we stand the connections come to pass, and though too strong to comprehend they affect us not the less.