Quotes By Paul Simon

Anybody can do bad work, but not everybody does good work.

All lies and jests, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.

Without Arthur's voice, I never would have enjoyed that success.

I try to open up my heart as much as I can and keep a real keen eye out that I don't get sentimental. I think we're all afraid to reveal our hearts. It's not at all in fashion.

I would be willing to do almost anything to make Art happy. I care about our friendship. The only thing I won't do is change the essence of my work.

The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenements halls and whispered in the sounds of silence.

I don't think that Simon and Garfunkel as a live act compares to Simon and Garfunkel as a studio act.

We just did what we'd done when we were an act in the '60s. But I found it impossible to hold a dialogue with 500,000 people. In a certain sense, it was numbing.

We had many more points of agreement than we had points of difference, but we did differ, and the bigger we got, the more insistent we got that each one of us should have his way.

People often called us perfectionists, but we were not looking for perfection. We were looking for some kind of magic in the music.

My voice is my improvisational instrument, the melody instrument. The guitar is harmonic structure. I'm not a good enough guitarist to improvise on it.

When we came into the studio I became more and more me, making the tracks and choosing the musicians, partly because a great deal of the time during Bridge, Artie wasn't there.

My whole artistic life has always been about change, change, change, move on, move on. It's the only thing I find interesting.

Artie is a singer, and I'm a writer and player and a singer. We didn't work together on a creative level and prepare the songs. I did that.

I don't consider myself to be a major talent, so the only solace I can take is to hope I'm growing.

I don't believe what the papers are saying They're just out to capture my dime, Exaggerating this, exaggerating that.

Why am I so soft in the middle when the rest of my life is so hard?

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

There must be 50 ways to leave your lover.

When I was 15, I made a solo record. It made Artie very unhappy. He looked upon it as something of a betrayal.

Having a track record to live up to and the history of successes had become a hindrance. It becomes harder to break out of what people expect you to do.

I lived in an attached house. My father used to drive into the wrong driveway all the time. He'd say, Damn it, how do you tell one of these houses from another?

It's pointless to be critical of your stuff once it's done. I don't spend a lot of time agonising over it. It's of no importance once it's finished.

Who am I to blow against the wind?

We were always able to sing and blend well together; that's our gift. But aside from that, we're really two different guys.

I rate each album as better than the last one. That's how I see it.

How much can you do with two voices? You can sing thirds or you can sing fifths or you can do a background harmony.

My life so common it disappears and sometimes even music cannot substitute for tears.

There's something about the sound of a train that's very romantic and nostalgic and hopeful.

As long as you have capital punishment there is no guarantee that innocent people won't be put to death.