James Taylor Quotes & Sayings

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

Shower the people you love with love. — James Taylor

I was in chemical jail. — James Taylor

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. — James Taylor

I was a functional addict. — James Taylor

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

I don't read music. I don't write it. So I wander around on the guitar until something starts to present itself. — James Taylor

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. — James Taylor

If the gig's going really well, I'm incredibly happy on stage and really feel good about my life and things. — James Taylor

It's hard to find a way forward. When you're 18 it happens in huge chunks every day, but after 20 years, growth is much more costly. — James Taylor

I told you that I love you, I was only telling a lie. I'll be long gone come the crack of dawn and I believe the word is goodbye. — James Taylor

Music is my living. I enjoy selling my music. — James Taylor

I don't think anyone really says anything new. — James Taylor

I'm always making music. I'm constantly making little musical recordings on my phone or on a little voice recorder I carry with me so I can remember these little pieces of music that eventually becomes songs. — James Taylor

Music reminds us that the universe loves us — James Taylor

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

Without a doubt, the warming of the past 100 years has been a welcome respite from a long and deadly Little Ice Age. The possibility that humans may have contributed to the recent warming does not make it any less welcome. — James Taylor

It's the nature of human consciousness to look for trouble constantly, and we find it. We find it. — James Taylor

I played the cello from when I was ten, and then I bought a guitar from the father of some friends of mine and played that for a while. And then when I was fourteen or so, I bought a guitar - a real nice one - in Durham, North Carolina, that I worked with up until I was about twenty-five. — James Taylor

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

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. — James Taylor

O, it's enough to be on your way. It's enough just to cover ground. It's enough to be moving on. Home: better build it behind your eyes. Carry it in your heart, Safe among your own. — James Taylor

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. — James Taylor

Americans work a long away ahead of themselves because of the size of the place. To make any impact at all you have to promote yourself with live performances ages before a release. — James Taylor

People have used my songs and guitar style to teach guitar for a long time. — James Taylor

One of my earliest memories was me singing 'Oh, What A Beautiful Mornin' at the top of my voice when I was seven. I got totally carried away. My grandmother, Sarah, was in the next room. I didn't even realise she was there. I was terribly embarrassed. — James Taylor

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

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. — James Taylor

If you feel like singing along, don't. — James Taylor

Sobering up was responsible for breaking up my marriage. That's what it couldn't stand. — James Taylor

It was like the top of the roof came off the house, .. He had that effect on everyone. — James Taylor

Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground — James Taylor

Let us turn our thoughts today to Martin Luther King and recognize that there are ties between us, all men and women living on the Earth. Ties of hope and love, sister and brotherhood, that we are bound together in our desire to see the world become a place in which our children can grow free and strong. We are bound together by the task that stands before us and the road that lies ahead. We are bound and we are bound. — James Taylor

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. — James Taylor

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. — James Taylor

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. — James Taylor

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

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? — James Taylor

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. — James Taylor

I would advise you to keep your overhead down; avoid a major drug habit; play everyday, and take it front of other people. They need to hear it, and you need them to hear it. — James Taylor

Einstein said that he never could understand it all, the planets spinning in space, the smile upon your face. — James Taylor

Music is like a huge release of tension. — James Taylor

I'm often surprised by classical music and musicians. I've met a large number of them because my wife works for the Boston Symphony, and I'm in that world a lot now. I'm surprised at how difficult it is for people who are classically trained to read music or to memorize music, how difficult it is for them to improvise, to just go off and play. It's sort of, it's like terra incognita. They just, (makes noise) they don't get it. — James Taylor

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

Time will take your money, but money won't buy time. — James Taylor

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

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

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

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

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 — James Taylor

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

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

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. — James Taylor

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

Just nine lucky soldiers had come through the night, half of them wounded and barely alive. Just nine out of twenty was headed for home, with eleven stories to tell. — James Taylor

I had a very moral upbringing, and spiritual in a sort of not very specific way. — James Taylor

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

I don't find the songs; they find me. I just strum my guitar and wait for a lyric to come. — James Taylor

I don't reinvent myself in any major way. It seems to be a slow evolution. I go back and visit certain themes that I feel strongly about and resonate with me emotionally. — James Taylor

It's easier to make an album, harder to figure out how to get people to notice it ... — James Taylor

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

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. — James Taylor

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

You have to choose whether to love yourself or not. — James Taylor

We could never have guessed
We were already blessed
where we are ... — James Taylor

It is the most delightful thing that ever happens to me, when I hear something coming out of my guitar and out of my mouth that wasn't there before. — James Taylor

Fortunately, it doesn't seem to have made a lot of difference to my audience that I'm as bald as a billiard ball! — James Taylor

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. — James Taylor

I think there's probably a God-shaped hole in everybody's being. Even if God only exists in people's minds, He's still a force. — James Taylor

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

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

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. — James Taylor

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

Creativity is the process that gives life to a new product. — James Taylor

I gathered up my sorrows and I sold them all for gold. And I gathered up the gold, and I threw it all away. — James Taylor

In the beginning, there was a kind of energy that - like an urgency to express myself, and the songs just couldn't be held in. But I think it changes, the nature of how that - what that energy is. And I need to court the muse in a much more serious way. — James Taylor

When you write a song, it may come from a personal space, but it very seldom actually represents you. It comes out of a sort of mood of melancholy, somehow. It's almost theatrical. — James Taylor

Within my heart is carved a sculpture of your love. — James Taylor

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

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

Won't you look down upon me Jesus, you've got to help me make a stand. You just got to see me through another day. — James Taylor

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. — James Taylor

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

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. — James Taylor

I don't read music. I don't write or read music. — James Taylor

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

A concert is always like a feast day to me. — James Taylor

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. — James Taylor

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

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. — James Taylor

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

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

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

You can bring your enemies to their knees with the possible exception of the North Vietnamese. — James Taylor

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

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

I have a studio in a barn at home - we rehearse there, we film there and we record there. It's fun to hang out with my guys and see what comes out next. — James Taylor

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 — James Taylor

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

I wanted to perform, I wanted to write songs, and I wanted to get lots of chicks. — James Taylor