Quotes By 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!

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

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.

Being on a boat that's moving through the water, it's so clear. Everything falls into place in terms of what's important and what's not.

I was a functional addict.

I started being a songwriter pretending I could do it, and it turned out I could.

I believe 100 percent in the power and importance of music.

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

It's a real wrenching thing to go from being a private person to being a public person, especially when you're being autobiographical. But it's what everyone wants - to get everyone's attention, to have your music make a living for you, to be validated in that way.

I'm looking forward to being able to retire from being a public figure and being able to afford to be myself!

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.

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.

It is a process of discovery. It's being quiet enough and undisturbed enough for a period of time so that the songs can begin to sort of peek out, and you begin to have emotional experiences in a musical way.

I was in chemical jail.

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

I can take criticisms but not compliments.

If you think my music is sentimental and self-absorbed, I agree with you.

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

When I cleaned up some 17 odd years ago, I felt terrible for about six months. The only thing that gave me any real relief was strenuous physical activity.

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

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

You have to choose whether to love yourself or not.

If I were to try to identify a turning point I'd say that was it - getting clean.

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

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.

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

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

I don't think anyone really says anything new.

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.

I tend to write out the first iteration of a lyric here and then go over here and make variations on it, on the page opposite.