Paul Simon famous quotes

And she said 'Losing love is like a window in your heart, Everybody sees you're blown apart, Everybody feels the wind blow.'
-- Paul Simon

#Life #Heart #Blow

It's actually very difficult to make something both simple and good.
-- Paul Simon

#Simple #Difficult

Music is forever; music should grow and mature with you, following you right on up until you die.
-- Paul Simon

#Wisdom #Dope #Forever

I was eating in a Chinese restaurant downtown. There was a dish called Mother and Child Reunion. It's chicken and eggs. And I said, I gotta use that one.
-- Paul Simon

#Mother #Children #Eggs

These are the days of miracle and wonder.
-- Paul Simon

#Miracle #Wonder

And so you see I have come to doubt -All that I once held as true ~ I stand alone without beliefs -The only truth I know is you
-- Paul Simon

#Doubt #Belief #Stand Alone

I've got nothing to do today but smile.
-- Paul Simon

#Funny #Life #Happiness

Faith is an island in the setting sun, But proof is the bottom line for everyone.
-- Paul Simon

#Faith #Reality #Islands

When I look back at all the crap I learned in high school, it's a wonder I can think at all.
-- Paul Simon

#Education #School #Learning

Much of songwriting is simply a mystery.
-- Paul Simon

#Writing #Mystery #Songwriting

You want to be a writer, don't know how or when? Find a quiet place, use a humble pen.
-- Paul Simon

#Humble #Use #Want

Why am I so soft in the middle when the rest of my life is so hard?
-- Paul Simon

#Squash #Life Is Hard #Hard Life

The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenements halls and whispered in the sounds of silence.
-- Paul Simon

#Wall #Silence #Subway

People often called us perfectionists, but we were not looking for perfection. We were looking for some kind of magic in the music.
-- Paul Simon

#Perfection #People #Magic

Sail on silver girl, sail on by...your time has come to shine all your dreams are on their way...see how they shine..oh and if you need a friend. I'm sailing right behind......
-- Paul Simon

#Girl #Dream #Shining

The thought that life could be better is woven indelibly into our hearts and our brains.
-- Paul Simon

#Hope #Cancer #Heart

Kodachrome, it gives us those nice bright colors Gives us the greens of summers Makes you think all the world's a sunny day, oh yeah! I got a Nikon camera, I love to take a photograph So momma, don't take my Kodachrome away...
-- Paul Simon

#Summer #Photography #Nice

If you can get humor and seriousness at the same time, you've created a special little thing, and that's what I'm looking for, because if you get pompous, you lose everything.
-- Paul Simon

#Humor #Special #Littles

Life I love you, all is groovy.
-- Paul Simon

#Love You #Groovy

My whole artistic life has always been about change, change, change, move on, move on. It's the only thing I find interesting.
-- Paul Simon

#Moving #Interesting #Artistic

A songwriter's supreme challenge is being complex and simple at the same time
-- Paul Simon

#Simple #Challenges

Improvisation is too good to leave to chance.
-- Paul Simon

#Chance #Improvisation

Anybody can do bad work, but not everybody does good work.
-- Paul Simon

#Doe #Good Work

Who am I to blow against the wind?
-- Paul Simon

#Blow #Wind

Not every song I write is ecstasy. And it can happen only one time. After that, when you sing the same melody and words, it's pleasure, but you don't get wiped out.
-- Paul Simon

#Song #Writing #Pleasure

Most of the time, the songs have jokes in them, little sarcastic things, or purposely kitsch or something. So that's going along with a story, like I do in life, just talking to myself and making fun of stuff and laughing at stuff that's serious. And sometimes it's a good idea to put the laughing into the songs. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's all right just to be serious. But most of the songs have some kind of joke in them.
-- Paul Simon

#Sarcastic #Song #Fun

I don't really know why an idea comes to me. But all of a sudden, an idea comes and from experience I can intuit what something means when an interesting line pops up. Or I can intuit what an interesting choice might be. And I can try a couple of different choices, and see which one feels right, and then continue the song to see where it goes.
-- Paul Simon

#Song #Couple #Writing

I don't feel any pressure from fans. But I'm always in some kind of state of emotional turmoil. I would not describe myself as happy-go-lucky. That's not to say that I'm not happy.
-- Paul Simon

#Emotional #Pressure #Fans

There must be 50 ways to leave your lover.
-- Paul Simon

#Way #Lovers

I rate each album as better than the last one. That's how I see it.
-- Paul Simon

#Lasts #Albums #Rate

I question what emotion Manilow touches. People are entertained by him. But are they emotionally moved? I don't believe anything that Barry Manilow sings.
-- Paul Simon

#Believe #People #Emotion

The problem is all inside your head, she said to me The answer is easy if you take it logically I'd like to help you in your struggle to be free There must be fifty ways to leave your lover.
-- Paul Simon

#Life #Struggle #Answers

I really don't know what exactly all the songs mean. Sometimes other people have meanings and when I hear them I think, 'That's really a better meaning than I thought, and perfectly valid, given the words that exist.' So part of what makes a song really good is that people take in different meanings, and they apply them, and they might be more powerful than the ones I'm thinking.
-- Paul Simon

#Song #Powerful #Writing

People talking without speaking,/ People listening without hearing...Sounds of Silence.
-- Paul Simon

#Talking #People #Thought Provoking

I've got a reason to believe we all be received in Graceland, Graceland, Memphis Tennessee.
-- Paul Simon

#Believe #Memphis #Tennessee

Most of the time, when I had hits as a soloist - maybe not so much with Simon & Garfunkel - I was surprised they were hits. I didn't know what the hits were. I never thought that 'Loves Me Like A Rock' was going to be a hit, or 'Mother And Child Reunion,' or '50 Ways To Leave Your Lover.' They didn't sound like what the hits sounded like at the time. Radio was more open to things that weren't exactly what every other hit was.
-- Paul Simon

#Mother #Children #Writing

I always get very calm with baseball.
-- Paul Simon

#Baseball #Calm

The words come. Usually, it's a long time before they come. And then when they start to come, it doesn't take so long for it to be finished. It takes a long time to begin. And then it sort of gets finished.
-- Paul Simon

#Writing #Long #Songwriting

...everything looks worse in black and white.
-- Paul Simon

#Photography #Black And White #Looks

I just said, you know, this is a great track but this lyric, I don't believe it. It sounds like I'm trying to say something, instead of it naturally coming out of me, like I was saying something that I already knew. Anyway, I can't remember what it was. And either I threw it all out or I threw 90 percent of it out, and kept a line or two. That's happened a couple of times to me. Not too often, but a couple of times. Very aggravating when it does happen.
-- Paul Simon

#Couple #Believe #Writing

I sort of recognize it, as opposed to shaping it. Oh, that's a good idea, that's a good line. I wonder where I can use that. And when you get into a rhyme group like 'not,' you got a lot of rhymes, you got a lot of choices. The more you do it, the luckier you get.
-- Paul Simon

#Writing #Ideas #Choices

I don't really like to write at a desk. I like to write when driving in a car. ... Once you're working on it, you're working on it all the time, and sometimes stuff'll come in the middle of the night, in a dream or something. Your mind is working on it all the time.
-- Paul Simon

#Dream #Writing #Night

She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy I said 'Be careful his bowtie is really a camera'
-- Paul Simon

#Photography #Men #Spy

Jay Ashby is simply a great musician!
-- Paul Simon

#Musician #Great Music #Great Musician

I would not be convicted by a jury of my peers, still crazy after all these years.
-- Paul Simon

#Crazy #Years #Insanity

I met my old lover on the street last night, she seemed glad to see me.
-- Paul Simon

#Night #Lasts #Lovers

Big box just wasn't our strength. We are a men's and boy's specialty store focused on providing high quality clothing with custom tailoring. Our customer is king. When we had seven stores, communication between the stores and with our customers became more disconnected. We started to lose that great family 'camaraderie' that is essentially the key to our success.
-- Paul Simon

#Kings #Communication #Boys

Justice Stevens is one of those who are most sensitive to the least powerful in our society.
-- Paul Simon

#Powerful #Law #Justice

The phrasing didn't work as well.
-- Paul Simon

#Baseball #Wells

These are the days of lasers in the jungle, staccato signals of constant information...
-- Paul Simon

#Information #Lasers #Signals

The risk of failure is part of the fun of what I do.
-- Paul Simon

#Fun #Risk

We work our jobs, collect our pay, believe were gliding down the highway, when in fact we're slip sliding away.
-- Paul Simon

#Jobs #Work #Believe

I met my old lover on the street last night. She seemed so glad to see me, I just smiled. Then we talked about some old times and we drank ourselves some beers, still crazy after all these years.
-- Paul Simon

#Crazy #Beer #Night

I like them all. ... They're all pictures of me when I wrote them. ... I have no favorite songs.
-- Paul Simon

#Song #Favorite Song

Instead of thinking in terms of chords, I think of voice-leading; that is, melody line and bass line, and where the bass line goes. If you do that, you'll have the right chord. [These voices] will give you some alternatives, and you can play those different alternatives to hear which one suits your ear... Keep the bass line moving so you don't stay in one spot: if you have an interesting bass line and you roll it against the melody, the chords are going to come out right.
-- Paul Simon

#Moving #Thinking #Play

I don't think [Dylan and the Beatles] influenced me a lot. I think it was inevitable; they were so powerful that you couldn't really escape the influence.
-- Paul Simon

#Powerful #Thinking #Influence

Breakdowns come, and breakdowns go.
-- Paul Simon

#Insanity #Breakdown

Two times two is twenty-two, four times four is forty-four. When numbers get serious, they leave a mark on your door.
-- Paul Simon

#Doors #Two #Numbers

Lord, I am a surgeon and music is my knife. It cuts away my sorrow and purifies my life.
-- Paul Simon

#Cutting #Knives #Rock And Roll

The public hungers to see talented young people kill themselves.
-- Paul Simon

#People #Addiction #Hunger

If you'll be my body guard, I can be your long lost pal.
-- Paul Simon

#Friendship #Long #Pals

Don't want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon grave yard.
-- Paul Simon

#Death #Cartoon #Want

I stepped outside to smoke a J and when I came back to the room, everybody just seemed to move.
-- Paul Simon

#Moving #Alcohol #Drug

Believing I had supernatural powers, I slammed into a brick wall.
-- Paul Simon

#Wall #Believe #Bricks

It was the year of the Beatles, it was the year of the Stones, it was 1964.
-- Paul Simon

#Years #Stones

Was a sunny day, not a cloud in the sky. Not a negative word was heard.
-- Paul Simon

#Inspirational #Sky #Clouds

You have underestimated my power, as you will shortly discover.
-- Paul Simon

#Inspirational #Underestimated

Couple in the next room bound to win a prize, they've been going at it all night long.
-- Paul Simon

#Couple #Winning #Night

Mama, don't take my Kodachrome away.
-- Paul Simon

#Mama #Controversy

Then she kissed me and I realized she probably was right, there must be fifty ways to leave your lover.
-- Paul Simon

#Rejection #Fifty #Way

They've got a wall in China, it's a thousand miles long. To keep out the foreigners, they made it strong. And I've got a wall around me, you can't even see.
-- Paul Simon

#Strong #Wall #Philosophy

Maybe I think too much for my own good.
-- Paul Simon

#Thinking #Too Much