Quotes from Gordon Lightfoot

See the judge upon the bench who tries the case as best he can, see the wise and wicked ones who feed upon life's sacred fire, see the soldier with his gun who must be dead to be admired.

I was happy to be in England because my mother had always loved the royals, and so do I. My mother had every memento you could find on the Queen.

I just do the cream-of-the-crop songs in my show. We just bowl them over; they love us. It just keeps getting better.

Turning back the pages of my sweet shattered dream, I wonder if she'll ever do the same; And the thing that I call living is just being satisfied With knowing I've got no one left to blame.

It was very interesting time to be in England. Even at that point [John] Lennon and [Paul] McCartney influenced my writing. I thought, "maybe there is a huck or two in here I haven't thought of".

I never really had stage nerves but I did have had trouble getting up to the right energy level. For a long time I drank. I drank up until 1982 and then I gave up alcohol.

I started writing songs in high school. And eventually, I got some songs recorded by some major artists, mostly because I was out there performing, and I was working in coffee houses and lounges, and people came to see me and hear my material.

I took the song The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face from a folk singer called Bonnie Dobson. I knew her and she had a record with that track on it.

Let our hearts touch far horizons. Let our love know no borders, Draw the Circles wide until, No one stands alone.

I don't think they should regulate the music field. I don't see how they can regulate the arts.

Does any one know where the love of God goes When the waves turn the minuted to hours

To all good men of reason, may they never thirst. (From Heaven Help The Devil).

The road to love is littered by the bones of other ones, who by the magic of the moment were mysteriously undone.

Every time you wanted to do something, you'd hope it would score. You'd keep trying and trying, and all of the sudden, something would come right out of left field, like 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.' No one had any idea about that one.

I started writing songs in high school, so you had to write this stuff out and register it with the Library of Congress. You had to learn how to do that stuff.

Everything is trust, all the rest is dust.

When love is true there is no truer occupation.

I know that we're being inexorably taken over by the Americans. Without a doubt. I don't mean invaded or anything like that, just taken over. By degrees.

I wrote one called 'The No Hotel.' I got inspired in 1989 while I was on a trip down to Brazil, and I didn't finish it until eight years later.

'If You Could Read My Mind' is a different experience every time I sing it. It's just that kind of a song.

I try to keep it light and positive most of the time, whereas earlier on I didn't always do that.

A child is born to a welfare case/ Where the rats run around like they own the place/ The room is chilly, the building is old/ That's how it goes/ A doctor's found on his welfare rounds/ And he comes and he leaves on the double

All the lovely ladies in their finery tonight I wish that I could know them one by one

Both the Beatles and The Rolling Stones broke on the music scene the summer I was in England. I can vividly remember hearing 'She Loves You' in August 1963.