A biography for James Taylorhasn’t been written yet.
“Performing is a profound experience, at least for me.”
“I'm looking forward to being able to retire from being a public figure and being able to afford to be myself!”
“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 was a functional addict.”
“Knowing when to quit is probably a very important thing, but I just am not ready.”
“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.”
“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.”
“You have to choose whether to love yourself or not.”
“I enjoy selling my music. I don't enjoy selling myself.”
“Time will take your money, but money won't buy time.”
“I think that we're all totally isolated beings and always will be.”
“I collect hats. That's what you do when you're bald.”
“I tend to write out the first iteration of a lyric here and then go over here and make variations on it, on the page opposite.”
“Songwriting is too mysterious and uncontrolled a process for me to direct it towards any one thing.”
“Sobering up was responsible for breaking up my marriage. That's what it couldn't stand.”
“I sometimes wonder how many of these lifetime achievement awards you can accept before you have to do the decent thing and die.”
“I started being a songwriter pretending I could do it, and it turned out I could.”
“I believe musicians have a duty, a responsibility to reach out, to share your love or pain with others.”
“It is the most delightful thing that ever happens to me, when I hear something coming out of my guitar and out of my mouth that wasn't there before.”
“When I cleaned up some 17 odd years ago, I felt terrible for about six months. The only thing that gave me any real relief was strenuous physical activity.”