Top 28 Fagen Quotes
#1. There's a cardinal rule in book publishing that applies equally to brain surgery and auto mechanics: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Since people are still buying the original Where Is God When It Hurts?
Philip Yancey
#2. We want 'Doll & Em' to be something we're proud of. We'd love to do another series, but it's not the be-all and end-all. Our friendship is the be-all and end-all.
Dolly Wells
#3. We start with gifts. Merit comes from what we make of them.
Jean Toomer
#4. I learned, especially from my mother, to respect the profession and take it seriously, but not take yourself too seriously.
Campbell Scott
#5. My writing is really intuitive. As a kid, I went to school in New Jersey and hung out in New York, so the way kids used to talk got into our earlier songs.
Donald Fagen
#7. My rule of thumb is to strike a balance by sticking to the classics and playing with color, texture, and print to give them a modern update. On any given day, I keep it simple with jeans or chinos and a comfortable dress shirt.
Tommy Hilfiger
#8. Randy Newman seemed like an even worse singer than me. I liked Ray Charles, Levi Stubbs, Jack Jones, Joe Tex, Wilson Pickett.
Donald Fagen
#9. I took some lessons as a kid but trained myself by ear. I did it the way jazz musicians used to learn years ago, which is to play records and slow them down to figure out the notes. At first I tried to imitate Red Garland, who was my favorite jazz pianist.
Donald Fagen
#10. Anthemic rock music is inherently fascist - anything intended to move huge masses of people is politically offensive to me.
Donald Fagen
#11. What do you do with what you're given, and how do you transform it into something worthwhile?
Donald Fagen
#12. I don't think you can escape the environment we live in now.
Donald Fagen
#13. People are usually afraid to say what's on their mind.
Donald Fagen
#14. It's great to know that our old stuff still sounds good to our fans, just as it's wonderful to think that we've turned a few people on to jazz over the years.
Donald Fagen
#15. My style is a little quirky. I can't play as fast as most professional jazz players.
Donald Fagen
#16. We don't think of ourselves as being perfectionists, really. To us it's more about desperately trying to have it sound more or less OK.
Donald Fagen
#17. I think of Steely Dan as being of its time, and it may be inseparable from its time.
Donald Fagen
#18. I had trouble distinguishing art from life. I don't now, and I feel much better!
Donald Fagen
#19. Popularity has everything to do with business and nothing to do with music.
Donald Fagen
#20. There was silence. Then as if to refresh the power of destruction, the wind rose and the waves rose and through the house there lifted itself a sullen wave of doom which curled and crashed and the whole earth seemed ruining and washing away in water.
Virginia Woolf
#22. As jazz fans, it was amusing for us to play jazz harmonies on these big, ugly electric guitars.
Donald Fagen
#23. I have a critical nature, in the sense that when I look at something I often look for the flaws.
Donald Fagen
#24. I'm starting to get older, and began to think about mortality a little more. My mother died in 2003 and that was a big shock. When your parents start to die off, that's going to be a revelation. So for me, this album - although it might sound quite cheery - is really talking about death.
Donald Fagen
#25. I've never been comfortable as a lead performer, and I never wanted to be a singer, particularly.
Donald Fagen
#26. I like it when songs develop in some way. Four minutes usually isn't enough time for something to develop musically.
Donald Fagen
#27. It has been a woman's task throughout history to go on believing in life when there was almost no hope.
Margaret Mead
#28. What a beautiful world this will be
What a glorious time to be free
Donald Fagen
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