Paul Simon Quotations | Page 2

I want to rid my heart of envy, and cleanse my soul of rage before I'm through.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Nor is it strange That after changes upon changes, we are more or less the same

I always get very calm with baseball.

It's very helpful to start with something that's true. If you start with something that's false, you're always covering your tracks. Something simple and true, that has a lot of possibilities, is a nice way to begin.

...everything looks worse in black and white.

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

Who's gonna love you when your looks are gone?

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.

I am just a poor boy, though my story's seldom told, and I have squandered my resistance, for a pocket full of mumbles, such are promises. All lies in jest, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest...la-la-la-la-la-la-la-lala-la-la-la-la...

All I've got to do today is smile.

Some people never say the words ‘I love you’, for like a child they’re longing to be told.

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.

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.

And I must be what I must be and face tomorrow.

The public hungers to see talented young people kill themselves.

...music is sometimes the only benign avenue of communication between antagonists.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Mama, don't take my Kodachrome away.

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

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

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

It was the year of the Beatles, it was the year of the Stones, it was 1964.

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

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

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

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

Medicine is magical and magical is art, the boy in the bubble, and the baby with the baboon heart.

People ask how I feel about getting old. I tell them I have the same question. I'm learning as I go.

I'm laying out my winter clothes and wishing I was gone, Going home, where the new york city winters aren't bleedin' me.

When I first heard Elvis perform "Bridge Over Trouble Water" it was unbelivable,and I thought to myself, how the hell can I compete with that?

Every time the industry gets powerful, and corporate thinking dominates what the music is, then the music really pales.

There are two sorts of people in the world: Those who listen and those who are thinking about what they are going to say next.

As soon as your mind knows that it's on and it's supposed to produce some lines, either it doesn't or it produces things that are very predictable. And that's why I say I'm not interested in writing something that I thought about. I'm interested in discovering where my mind wants to go, or what object it wants to pick up.

After all those years of automatic success, you don't get nervous any more. It's really necessary to be nervous and be a little bit frightened. It pumps the adrenalin into you and you really get down there and try.

Although I was able to study music with teachers, I never studied lyric writing. I read poetry, and I read other lyricists. But they were never writing in the style or the form that I was interested in.

I feel I should try to reveal. When you hit it right, you produce an emotional response in the listener that can be cathartic. When you're wrong, you're soppy, sentimental.

I see a correlation between short stories and songs, because of their length and for what they're meant to evoke. Combine certain words with melodies and it all becomes very moving.

The more I get to thinking, the less I tend to laugh.

The only time that love is an easy game is when two other people are playing it.

To get the stuff out of you, especially if what you're dealing with is yourself, requires you to open up and touch tender spots. You have to be anesthetized a little bit.

The leaves that are green turn to brown. And they wither with the wind. And they crumble in your hand.

Take two bodies and you twirl them into one, their hearts and their bones, and they won't come undone.

By the time I was 12 or 13, I felt that I was special, because I could play the guitar and write songs.

Cecilia was made in a living room on a Sony. It was like a little piece of magical fluff, bur it works. El Condor Pasa a Los Incas record that I love. Bridge is a very strong melodic song.

A phenomenon occurs but because you're in the middle of it, you just think it's your life-until it's over. And then you look back and say, What an unusual thing happened to me in the '60s.

I didn't get how big it was until I went home, turned on the television and saw it on all the news, and later that night on the front pages of all the newspapers. Then I got it.

Anthony Heilbut has been a guide and a mentor to me. I know of no one who has the love and depth of knowledge of this extraordinary author.

Jay Ashby is simply a great musician!

Breakdowns come, and breakdowns go.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

I regret the ending of our friendship and hope one day before we die, we'll make peace with each other . . . No rush.

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.

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

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.

The phrasing didn't work as well.

It was easier than explaining DiMaggio's use as a metaphor.

The degree of customization possible through your Preferences screens is awesome.

Maybe I think too much for my own good.

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.

Elvis was the reason I picked up the guitar.

Hide it in a hiding place where no one ever goes Put it in your pantry with your cupcakes

I have my books and my poetry to protect me

Listen to the sound of silence.

I don't like fashion. It's very heartless.

A man walks down the street. It's a street in a strange world. Maybe it's the third world. Maybe it's his first time around. He doesn't speak the language. He holds no currency. He is a foreign man. He is surrounded by the sound, sound of cattle in the marketplace, scatterlings and orphanages. He looks around, around he sees angels in the architecture spinning in infinity and he says, "Amen" and "Hallelujah!

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.

* She said, why don't we both just sleep on it tonight And I believe, in the morning you'll begin to see the light And then she kissed me and I realized she probably was right There must be fifty ways to leave your lover, fifty ways to leave your lover Paul Simon, Still Crazy After All These Years (1975), 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover First thing I remember when you came into my life I said I wanna get that girl, no matter what I do Well I guess I've been in love before and once or twice have been on the floor But I've never loved no-one the way that I love you.

Serious numbers will speak to us always.

There is a moment, a chip in time, when leaving home is the lesser crime.

I won't disturb the slumber of feelings that have died. If I never loved I never would have cried...I am a rock.

Just slip out the back, Jack, make a new plan, Stan, you don't need to be coy, Roy, just get yourself free. Hop on the bus, Gus, you don't need to discuss much, just drop off the key, Lee, and get yourself free.

The death penalty is reserved for people who do not

One man's ceiling is another man's floor.

The trick is, as I know it, is to care like hell and not give a damn at the same time.

All God requires from us is to enjoy life and love. That's the whole point.

So I'll continue to continue to pretend my life will never end, and flowers never bend with the rainfall.

I'm going to Graceland, for reasons I cannot explain. There's some part of me wants to see Graceland. And I may be advised to defend every love, every ending, or maybe there's no obligations now. Maybe I've a reason to believe we all will be received in Graceland.

You know, life is what you make of it- so beautiful or so what.

Blessed are the sat upon, spat upon, ratted on.

The course of a lifetime runs/over and over again

Far above the golden clouds, the darkness vibrates. The earth is blue. And everything about it is a love song. Everything about it.

Maybe the heart is part of the mist. And that's all that there is or could ever exist. Maybe and maybe and maybe some more. Maybe's the exit that I'm looking for.

Take me. I'm an ordinary player in the key of C. And my will was broken by my pride and my vanity. Who's gonna love you when you're looks are gone? God will. Like he waters the flowers on your window sill.

...what threatens us today in the world of computers and other invasions of privacy is not a national ID card but a number of other things.