Quotes from James Taylor

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

Fortunately, it doesn't seem to have made a lot of difference to my audience that I'm as bald as a billiard ball!

I was a functional addict.

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.

Creativity is the process that gives life to a new product.

I think it surprises a lot of people that I'm still around, you know, still - that I'm not pushing up daisies, as they say.

It won't be long before another day, were gonna have a good time. And no ones gonna take that time away. You can stay as long as you like

Time will take your money, but money won't buy time.

Knowing when to quit is probably a very important thing, but I just am not ready.

I have a love-hate relationship with the Grammys because I don't see the music world as a competitive sport.

It's hard to find a way forward. When you're 18 it happens in huge chunks every day, but after 20 years, growth is much more costly.

I sometimes wonder how many of these lifetime achievement awards you can accept before you have to do the decent thing and die.

There'll come a writing phase where you have to defend the time, unplug the phone and put in the hours to get it done.

I'm grateful to my audience, that there are people who will buy a ticket and come and see us play and who essentially support me and this life of music.

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 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.

I collect hats. That's what you do when you're bald.

I don't get into heavy political numbers because I don't find them lyrical.

I played the cello from when I was ten, and then I bought a guitar from the father of some friends of mine and played that for a while. And then when I was fourteen or so, I bought a guitar - a real nice one - in Durham, North Carolina, that I worked with up until I was about twenty-five.

Baby booty, juicy fruity, truck stop cutie, road side beauty, I'm in love with you.

Shower the people you love with love.

I have a studio in a barn at home - we rehearse there, we film there and we record there. It's fun to hang out with my guys and see what comes out next.

It's probably foolish to expect relationships to go on forever and to say that because something only lasts 10 years, it's a failure.

What I've always done as an entertainer is try to come up with things that people will find interesting, or compelling, or humorous.