Quotes from Paul Simon

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

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.

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

A man sees what he wants to see, And disregards the rest.

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

I always get very calm with baseball.

I think I have a superior brain and an inferior stature, if you really want to get brutal about it.

She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy I said 'Be careful his bowtie is really a camera'

I know a man He came from my home town He wore his passion for his woman Like a thorny crown He said "Dolores I live in fear My love for you's so overpowering I'm afraid that I will disappear

I was eating in a Chinese restaurant downtown. There was a dish called Mother and Child Reunion. It's chicken and eggs. And I said, I gotta use that one.

...music is sometimes the only benign avenue of communication between antagonists.

Lord, I am a surgeon and music is my knife. It cuts away my sorrow and purifies my life.

They've got a wall in China, it's a thousand miles long. To keep out the foreigners, they made it strong. And I've got a wall around me, you can't even see.

Poverty is not an act of God. It is the result of flawed policy, and that is a moral challenge.

Improvisation is too good to leave to chance.

She said a good day ain't got no rain She said a bad day is when I lie in the bed And I think of things that might have been

Being an artist doesn't mean that you're a good artist. That was the bargain I first made with myself: I'd say, I'm an artist, but I'm not really very good.

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 didn't get how big it was until I went home, turned on the television and saw it on all the news, and later that night on the front pages of all the newspapers. Then I got it.

Journalists should be people in whom there is at least a flicker of hope.

Was a sunny day, not a cloud in the sky. Not a negative word was heard.

You have underestimated my power, as you will shortly discover.

We got on American Bandstand, where kids would dance to a record and then rate it. We called ourselves Tom and Jerry. I was Jerry.

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.