Quotes from Ry Cooder

People respond to any good you can do in music.

People who aren't as interested in recorded music as they used to be will say, 'Oh, 'Buena Vista?' Loved it.' And I'll say, 'Well, how about any of my other recent records. I've been doing some pretty good ones. You like those?' And they go, 'Huh?'

'Buena Vista Social Club' is a great song and a difficult tune to play.

I'm a great lover of ballads.

The blues is so expressive - nostalgic but not sentimental, mournful but not pathetic, so humble and close to the earth. It's a nuance-filled thing.

I'm not interested in making folkloric records, but I like to push the traditional format around so that familiar patterns get knocked on the head.

I've listened to blues my whole life. I know it, I play it, I understand it.

I've been wanting an ice cream truck forever.

On any given day, if I play the guitar, I can put myself somewhere. I always thought, 'This is the way you go.' It's like a magic carpet, see?

Bad music can make you weak.

I just feel that music is a great life, because it's very rewarding. It's a gratification. You do this for yourself, and you also do this for other people.

Beautiful tunes are all very good and fine, and great musicians are always great, but that alone isn't enough.

It's crazy to make records nobody buys. It's just a waste of time.

How many BMWs do you need? How many Rolex watches you gonna wear in your lifetime, for crying out loud? What is it about that kind of desire? I don't understand it.

That's what records do: represent a compressed, heightened version of the sound. Because of the compression of the tubes and microphones and the wax, it's magic!

Some people have career plans, long-range career plans. I don't know anything about that. I'm no good at it.

I can't help what people write or think. If somebody thinks I'm a serious archivist, they're wrong. That's been a problem. It's a shame people take that attitude, because it affects how they listen to the music. It's a big mistake to treat any pop music that way.

The story of American pop music is the story of failure. The blues, country music, it's not the story of success. People don't win; they lose.

The world will always love Cuban music, however it changes.

Chavez Ravine is the dawn of Chicano consciousness.

I always have felt that most people don't have the first idea about what musicians, in the traditional sense - I don't mean in the modern media fake way, but traditionally - what they went through, what their lives were like.

I always loved country gospel from back when I was a teenager in high school and started listening to bluegrass quite a lot.

Promoters don't book you 'cause they like you; they do it 'cause there's good business to be done.

I'm sort of an osmotic fellow.