Paul Simon Song Quotes

#1. One of the disadvantages of poetry over popular music is that if you write a pop song, it naturally gets into people's heads as they listen in the car. You don't have to memorize a Paul Simon song; it's just in your head, and you can sing along. With a poem, you have to will yourself to memorize it.

Billy Collins

#2. I like working with sound; sound and rhythm. I like the abstract more than "What does that mean?" Nobody ever says to you, "Why did you use a harmonium?" Or "What is that ringing sound that occurs here?" The questions are always "What does that song mean?" or "What were you trying to say here?"

Paul Simon

#3. We do not need an imported system for falsifying elections! We will create our own, one run by the state!

Alexander Lukashenko

#4. I think Bridge Over Troubled Water was a very good song. Artie sang it beautifully. The Boxer was a really nice record. But I don't think I've written any great songs.

Paul Simon

#5. 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.

Paul Simon

#6. As long as one American is hungry ... then we have unfinished business in this country.

William Safire

#7. I don't know how to write a children's book.

Maurice Sendak

#8. There are some good songs, but not the kind of song-writing that I remember, that I like. Springsteen still does it. Paul Simon, and there are also good writers, but that doesn't dominate the charts.

Jackie DeShannon

#9. The abstract music is just more interesting because it doesn't really have anything to say, but if it is good, it creates thoughts and feelings, and I enjoy that. For me, once the music creates those thoughts and feelings, I begin to write a song about it.

Paul Simon

#10. We mistakenly measure strength by comparing battle scars, when the truly strong among us are those who know the battle is never really over.

Esther Mitchell

#11. The office of drama is to exercise, possibly to exhaust, human emotions. The purpose of comedy is to tickle those emotions into an expression of light relief; of tragedy, to wound them and bring the relief of tears. Disgust and terror are the other points of the compass.

Laurence Olivier

#12. 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.

Paul Simon

#13. In the clearing stands the boxer, and a fighter by his trade.
And he carries a reminder of every glove that laid him down ...
or cut him till he cried out in his anger and his shame
"I am leaving! I am leaving" but the fighter still remains.

Paul Simon

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

Paul Simon

#15. 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

#16. 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.

Paul Simon

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

Paul Simon

#18. Then on to all the terrific american songwriters, from Tin Pan Alley to the Beatles, from Bob Dylan to Paul Simon. Whoever wrote and sang in the song form I have appreciated.

Tom Chapin

#19. Much of the time, as an actor, you sit around waiting. Most of your life and career, you're waiting for your agent or your manager to call you.

Dylan McDermott

#20. My big concern is me and what do I do now until the time of my death. That is valid. That is useful. That is beautiful. That is creative.

Maurice Sendak

#21. A little Toffee Crunch,

Patrick Skene Catling

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

Paul Simon

#23. We need radical thinking, creative ideas, and imagination.

Mairead Corrigan

#24. Somehow you can tell the difference when a song is written just to get on the radio and when what someone does is their whole life. That comes through in Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Willie Nelson. There is no separating their life from their music.

Lyle Lovett

#25. Somewhere in a burst of glory / Sound becomes a song.

Paul Simon