Quotes About Legacy

My mother gave me the courage to pursue music as a career on her deathbed. She became very ill when I was 21. I didn't want her to worry about my future. I wanted her to know I'd finish my degree. But she pushed me to follow my dream, even if it wasn't the safe option.

The Simpsons can go anywhere in the world and not worry about any budgetary issues. However, even when the show has had its run, I think the characters can go on in perpetuity.

My death is incidental, and I worry very much about my loved ones and, you know, would like to make it as easy as possible for them. Or wish I could will away whatever, you know, the sadness they will feel when I die. But for me, nothing. The world goes on.

I've tried to be more self-sufficient as I've gotten older. I'd like to not worry about whether they're going to sell my next album or book. Hell, William Blake wasn't even published in his lifetime.

I gave my last concert in 1976. For 32 years, I had given everything I had. I wanted to stop. My last big debut was in Russia in 1973. After I retired, I didn't have to worry about going out in bad weather. I could stay up late.

Oh, I'll be forgotten too, don't worry.

Basically, the start of my thinking process is: 'OK, if you didn't have to worry about re-election, what would you be doing?' That's kind of how I'm starting to think.

John F. Kennedy asked us what we could do for America. This Democratic Party asks what can government give you. Don't worry about paying the bill, it's on your kids and grandkids.

When I think of the future, I think of my 15 year old son Connor and my 12 year old daughter Meghan. I worry about their future because your kids are as important to you as mine are to me. And I am unwilling to leave our children with so much debt.

I'm American. I'm eclectic. I'm going to follow my musical passions. And if people don't like it, and it hurts my legacy, I'm not going to worry about that.

I guess I worry about weird existential things, like how do we spend our final act. This is a very emotional question. I can't answer it without crying. I think, You're 56 years old, what did you do? You raised two good kids. What am I going to do now that is as meaningful as that? I don't know the answer yet.

Part of leaving your legacy is not worrying what everyone is saying about it.

Thomas Jefferson once said, 'We should never judge a president by his age, only by his works.' And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying.

I don't keep a diary and I throw away nearly all the paper I might have kept. I don't keep an archive. There's something worrying about my make-up that I try to leave no trace of myself apart from my plays.

If I'm lucky enough to see the day when my sons are living independently, maybe with families of their own, I'll still be wondering how I can be a better mother and worrying about the things I overlooked back when they lived under my roof.

The whole consideration of - ... am I being compared as such and such's grandson and son - that was minuscule compared to the problems I was having just working... I didn't have time to start worrying about who I was in the eyes of the public.

Sometimes I wake at 2 A.M. worrying that my great-granddaughter will have to march through her distant, broiling future gathering all the plastic I ever disposed of.

I have children, so I'm constantly worrying about the world they are going to inherit.

Sustainability is one of my biggest passions. I have two little girls, twins, and I lie awake at night worrying about what the world will look like for them.

I am surprised and embarrassed to be a part of the first American generation to leave the country in far worse shape than it was when we first came into it.

Teaching the history of the British Empire links in with that of the world: for better and for worse, the Empire made us what we are, forming our national identity. A country that does not understand its own history is unlikely to respect that of others.

I don't know what more to say. I mean, we're all going to die in a world that is worse than when we entered it.

I could have made money this way, and perhaps amused myself writing code. But I knew that at the end of my career, I would look back on years of building walls to divide people, and feel I had spent my life making the world a worse place.

What I'm most pleased about is that there's no particular decline. The songs I wrote 40 years ago are no worse and no better - there's a consistency.