Top 100 Billy Joel Quotes
#1. If it seems like I've been lost in 'lets remember', If it seems I'm gettin' older and missin' my younger days, well you shoulda known me much better, cause the past is something that never got in my way.
Billy Joel
#2. Do what you love, and you'll always love what you do
Billy Joel
#3. If you make music for the human needs you have within yourself, then you do it for all humans who need the same things. You enrich humanity with the profound expression of these feelings.
Billy Joel
#4. What if she figures out you're not very smart?
Billy Joel
#5. Don't wait for answers, just take your chances. Don't ask me why.
Billy Joel
#6. For whatever reason, not all people are born with the particular gift of being able to express ourselves through music. And, believe me, it is a gift.
Billy Joel
#7. Well I never had a place that I could call my very own/That's all right, my love, 'cause you're my home.
Billy Joel
#8. Hope you don't think this is Billy Joel unplugged. I'm a piano player. I'm already unplugged.
Billy Joel
#9. Forced to recognize our inhumanity, our reason coexists with our insanity. And though we choose between reality and madness, it's either sadness or euphoria.
Billy Joel
#10. It's OK if you mess up. You should give yourself a break.
Billy Joel
#11. There ain't no island left for islanders like me.
Billy Joel
#12. It's a little intimidating to walk into a studio and know that you're going to sing a duet with Barbra Streisand.
Billy Joel
#13. There are people who have lost every trace of human kindness.
Billy Joel
#14. I've reached the age where competence is a turn-on.
Billy Joel
#15. Though you can see when you're wrong, you know you can't always see when you're right.
Billy Joel
#16. I would say the songs that have different lyrics. I always write the music first, and there's a couple of songs on this box set that have different lyrics from what ended up on the final recording.
Billy Joel
#17. You're having a hard time and lately you don't feel so good; You're getting a bad reputation in your neighborhood. It's alright, it's alright; Sometimes that's what it takes. You're only human, you're allowed to make your share of mistakes.
Billy Joel
#18. I always wrote the music first, and the music gave me the mood and the lyrics were pretty much put in to give you a map, where that mood came from and where it's going. But my first love was really the music itself, and I guess I've gone back to that.
Billy Joel
#19. Honesty is such a lonely word. Everyone is so untrue ...
Billy Joel
#20. When I look at great works of art or listen to inspired music, I sense intimate portraits of the specific times in which they were created.
Billy Joel
#21. They say that no one's gonna play this on the radio. They said the melancholy blues were dead and gone. But only songs like these played in minor keys, keep those memories holding on.
Billy Joel
#22. Some of the stuff I'm writing is almost like hymns, some of my first singing and choral experiences were in church, the Church of Christ in Hicksville.
Billy Joel
#23. Streetlife serenaders Have no obligations Hold no grand illusions Need no stimulation.
Billy Joel
#24. I've passed the age of consciousness and righteous rage. I found that just surviving was a noble fight.
Billy Joel
#25. There's nothing better than good sex. But bad sex? A peanut butter and jelly sandwich is better than bad sex.
Billy Joel
#26. We drown our doubts in dry champagne and soothe our souls with fine cocaine. I don't know why I even care, we get so high and get nowhere.
Billy Joel
#27. I am the entertainer, the idol of my age I make all kinds of money when I go on the stage You see me in the papers, I've been in the magazines But if I go cold, I won't get sold I get put in the back in the discount rack Like another can of beans.
Billy Joel
#28. I was listening to stuff and I realized that I've had a lot of different lives. You know the theory [that says] every seven years, you have a different life? I think that's true.
Billy Joel
#29. She's the quiet type who's into heavy metal.
Billy Joel
#30. I look in the mirror and think, 'I don't look like a rock star.' I talked about this with Bono and we looked at each other and decided we look like a pair of bricklayers.
Billy Joel
#31. I have long admired Steinway pianos for their qualities of tone, clarity, pitch consistency, touch responsiveness, and superior craftsmanship.
Billy Joel
#32. You just sit home and masturbate. The phone is going to ring soon, but you just can't wait.
Billy Joel
#33. You may be right, I may be crazy, but it just might be a lunatic you're looking for
Billy Joel
#34. Musicians want to be the loud voice for so many quiet hearts.
Billy Joel
#35. Call you up in the middle of the night. It's awful hard trying to make love long distance, but I really need stimulation.
Billy Joel
#36. I look at some of the songs I wrote years ago and I can't believe I wrote such crap.
Billy Joel
#37. I compare songwriting to childbirth. How many kids can you have before your uterus explodes?
Billy Joel
#38. I think historically America has been pretty tolerant. It seems when there's a mass influx from one place, that's when it becomes problematic for Americans.
Billy Joel
#39. Advice is cheap; you can take it from me.
Billy Joel
#40. I have been both praised and criticized. The criticism stung, but the praise sometimes bothered me even more. To have received such praise and honors has always been puzzling to me.
Billy Joel
#41. I'm a cosmopolitan sophisticate of culture and intelligence. The culmination of technology and civilized experience.
Billy Joel
#42. Like family, we are tied to each other. This is what all good musicians understand.
Billy Joel
#43. If you're a very unfulfilled person you might have a tendency to turn to crime.
Billy Joel
#44. Let me go on sleeping and I will lose myself in palaces of sand, and all the fantasies that I've been keeping will make the empty hours easier to stand.
Billy Joel
#45. Someday we'll all be gone, but lullabies go on and on / They never die, that's how you and I will be
Billy Joel
#46. Artists - musicians, painters, writers, poets - always seem to have had the most accurate perception of what is really going on around them, not the official version or the popular perception of contemporary life.
Billy Joel
#47. And it was dark
So dark at night
And we held on to each other
Like brother to brother
We promised our mothers we'd write
And we would all go down together
Billy Joel
#48. Move to California - my first impression of the Wild West.
Billy Joel
#49. Give us this day our daily discount merchandise.
Billy Joel
#50. A typical day in the life of a heavy metal musician consists of a round of golf and an AA meeting.
Billy Joel
#51. I have a theory that the only original things we ever do are mistakes.
Billy Joel
#52. Know what you love and do what you love. If you don't do what you love, you're just wasting your time.
Billy Joel
#53. I tell the audience every night, "I hope you didn't pay more than face value on that ticket, because we ain't worth more than that, and you ain't gonna get any more than that."
Billy Joel
#54. When I was a young musician, the only option available to pursue secondary education in music was to attend a classical conservatory.
Billy Joel
#55. When I was 19, I made my first good week's pay as a club musician. It was enough money for me to quit my job at the factory and still pay the rent and buy some food. I freaked.
Billy Joel
#56. There's always a place for the angry young man with his fist in the air and his head in the sand. He's never been able to learn from mistakes, he can't understand why his heart always breaks.
Billy Joel
#57. They say there's a heaven for those who wait, some say it's better I say it ain't.
Billy Joel
#58. And the waitress is practicing politics
As the businessmen slowly get stoned
Yes, they're sharing a drink they call loneliness
But its better than drinkin' alone
Billy Joel
#59. In an age of incompetence, I've been able to last in this crazy business. I actually know how to play my ax and write a song. That's my job.
Billy Joel
#60. Every child had a pretty good shot, to get at least as far as their old man got. But something happened on the way to that place. They threw an American flag in our face.
Billy Joel
#62. Rock and roll cola wars, I can't take it any more.
Billy Joel
#63. You may never understand How the stranger is inspired For he is not always evil, And he is not always wrong.
Billy Joel
#64. You've got yoga, I've got beer. You got overpriced, I got weird.
Billy Joel
#65. As human beings, we need to know that we are not alone, that we are not crazy or completely out of our minds, that there are other people out there who feel as we do, live as we do, love as we do, who are like us.
Billy Joel
#66. Give a moment or two to the angry young man with his foot in his mouth and his heart in his hand.
Billy Joel
#67. The biggest regret? This may be one of those years I have no regrets.
Billy Joel
#68. Ain't no rainbows shining on me, shades of gray are the colors I see.
Billy Joel
#70. Here I am starting a franchise and I'm gonna be 65 years old. I should've started this in 1978 ... I wrote like 300 songs and I'm gonna have to re-learn some of them!
Billy Joel
#71. We passed the hash pipe and played our Doors tapes.
Billy Joel
#72. I don't want clever conversation, I never want to work that hard, I just want someone I can talk to, I want you just the way you are.
Billy Joel
#73. Streetlife serenader never sang on stages, needs no orchestration, melody comes easy, need no vast arrangement to do their harmonizing.
Billy Joel
#74. I am no longer afraid of becoming lost, because the journey back always reveals something new, and that is ultimately good for the artist.
Billy Joel
#75. There's a deep-seated paranoia that Americans have about not being Americans or something.
Billy Joel
#76. I could walk away from anyone I ever knew, but I can't walk away from you.
Billy Joel
#77. You may be wrong, but you may be right.
Billy Joel
#78. Sweetness flows from your appearance and your beauty makes me fall more in love with you. Anytime I feel low, I think about the good times you have given me and everything seems good again.
Billy Joel
#79. I definitely prefer being a lover than a fighter.
Billy Joel
#80. The piano sounds like a carnival and the microphone smells like a beer. And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar and say, man, what are you doing here?
Billy Joel
#81. I see the winos talking to themselves and I can understand.
Billy Joel
#82. Slow down you're doing fine You can't be everything you want to be Before your time Although it's so romantic on the borderline tonight Too bad but it's the life you lead You're so ahead of yourself That you forfeit what you need Though you can see when you're wrong
Billy Joel
#83. I'm sure you have some cosmic rationale, but here you are with your faith and your Peter Pan advice.
Billy Joel
#84. This is the time to remember cause it will not last forever. These are the days to hold onto cause we won't although we'll want to.
Billy Joel
#85. You look so polished from your hair down to your toes, but still your finger's gonna pick your nose.
Billy Joel
#86. I don't want some pretty face to tell me pretty lies, all I want is someone to believe.
Billy Joel
#87. People pay a lot of money to go see shows now, they don't wanna know about your technical problems, or if you're not feeling good, they don't wanna know we have a glitch. It's their night, you better do something to earn that money.
Billy Joel
#88. You want to give people a reason to hate my guts more? I'm making more money.
Billy Joel
#89. I don't know why people thought I was retiring.
Billy Joel
#90. Why do musicians give so much time to charitable causes? The most humanitarian cause that we can give our time to is the creation and performance of music itself.
Billy Joel
#91. Sing us a song you're the piano man.
Sing us a song tonight.
Cause we're all in the mood for a melody,
And you've got us feeling all right.
Billy Joel
#92. I believe that all important matters have to be settled here, not in the clouds somewhere after we kick off.
Billy Joel
#93. Black and white is how it should be, but shades of grey are the colors I see.
Billy Joel
#94. She can kill with her smile, she can wound with her eyes.
Billy Joel
#95. I never said I wasn't going to play any more. I don't know where that came from.
Billy Joel
#96. Honesty is the best part of any art form. If you don't have that, you're kidding yourself and your listener.
Billy Joel
#97. I consider myself to be an inept pianist, a bad singer, and a merely competent songwriter. What I do, in my opinion, is by no means extraordinary.
Billy Joel
#99. It feels great to have a #1 album.
Billy Joel
#100. I was drawn to boxing because I got beat up as a kid. I was the kid with the piano books in a New York neighbourhood.
Billy Joel
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