Famous Quotes & Sayings

Donald Sutherland

I am so glad my wife tolerates me. And we have three wonderful sons.

Donald Sutherland

I think we're [me and my son] different. He plans, organizes and intellectualizes more than I do. It wasn't until I worked with Federico Fellini that I understood what my problem was.

Don McLean

But I knew - in the old days, if a song was a good song, I don't care if it was 'Yellow Submarine' or, you know, or 'The Times They Are a-Changin' or 'Don't Be Cruel', you knew it, you know? You heard that song, and you were talking about it, and you knew it.

Don McLean

In a sense, 'American Pie' was a very despairing song but it can also be seen as very hopeful.

Don McLean

Because of an off-hand funny comment I made backstage at a concert years ago, a story circulated that the song has been a burden and even that I didn’t sing it for a while. That’s completely false. I am very proud of ‘American Pie’ and the many satellites that grow from it and revolve around it. For many years I carried my songs around and now they carry me around. I have always sung ‘American Pie’ for my audience and would never think of disappointing them since it is they who have given me a wonderful life and untold affection for almost 30 years.

Don McLean

American Pie speaks to the loss that we feel. That's why that song has found the niche that it has.

Don McLean

As you can imagine, over the years I have been asked many times to discuss and explain my song "American Pie" I have never discussed the lyrics, but have admitted to the Holly reference in the opening stanzas. You will find many interpretations of my lyrics but none of them by me. ... Sorry to leave you all on your own like this but long ago I realized that songwriters should make their statements and move on, maintaining a dignified silence.

Don McLean

I'd listen to all the stuff that was going on around me and drift off into my fantasies about it. My fantasies have fuelled all the songs I've ever written.

Don King

This is a setback. You get back up, you dust yourself off, and you get back in the game. We had a great singer named Ray Charles who wrote a song called 'Drowning in My Tears.' You can't afford to drown in your tears. You gotta go back, rededicate yourself, redouble your efforts, and persevere.

Douglas Adams

Yes it is,' said the Professor. 'Wait—' he motioned to Richard, who was about to go out again and investigate— 'let it be. It won't be long.' Richard stared in disbelief. 'You say there's a horse in your bathroom, and all you can do is stand there naming Beatles songs?' The Professor looked blankly at him.

Dorothea Benton Frank

I love to cook, my husband and I collect wine, and in my head, I am always on Sullivan's Island, walking the beach listening to the song of the ocean.

Doris Kearns Goodwin

While its [Harvard's] undergraduate life was still controlled [in 1908-1912] by a select group of rich and fashionable families whose sons merely arrived when they were due to fill the places that had been waiting for them from the day they were born, it was, at the same time, opening its doors to a more cosmopolitan student population and beginning to take the first tentative steps toward mitigating the evils of a pyramidal social system that concentrated all its social honors upon the rich and the wellborn.

Doris Lessing

This is a catastrophic universe, always; and subject to hidden reversals, upheavals, changes, cataclysms, with joy never anything but the song of substance under pressure forced into new forms and shapes.

Doris Lessing

Humanity's legacy of stories and storytelling is the most precious we have. All wisdom is in our stories and songs. A story is how we construct our experiences.

Donna Summer

A friend of mine called and said they're interested in having you do a song for the new Pokemon. All my kids are grown up, so I'd heard of it, but I didn't really know what it was.

Donna Tartt

From the window, above the clatter of pots and the slamming of cabinets, Francis was singing, as though it was the happiest song in the world: 'We are the little black sheep who have gone astray . . . Baa baa baa . . . Gentlemen songsters off on a spree . . . Doomed from here to eternity . . .

Donald Fagen

My writing is really intuitive. As a kid, I went to school in New Jersey and hung out in New York, so the way kids used to talk got into our earlier songs.

Donald Fagen

I like it when songs develop in some way. Four minutes usually isn't enough time for something to develop musically.

Donald Glover

Most people think I'm Danny Glover's son when they meet me. So when they ask, I say 'No, I'm Crispin Glover's son.' Then we stare at each other for a long time.

Dale Evans

Who cares about the clouds when we're together? Just sing a song and bring the sunny weather.

Cris Judd

On `Earth Song' I was the military guy that would come out of a tank that was used during the show. It was unbelievable; somehow I'd become a Michael Jackson fan that got to dance with Michael Jackson! I spent a lot of time wondering, "what the hell did I do right to deserve this?"

Creed Bratton

I'm not one of these people who sits down and writes to say I'm gonna write a song about this or that, or a specific subject. The songs actually kind of write themselves.

Creed Bratton

If I write songs and I think they sound good, then that's it. That's what I do. I'm not a technical musician, which is fine for rock and roll.

Creed Bratton

I don't sit down to write a song, per se.

Craig T. Nelson

My youngest son is a writer. He wrote for 'The District' and 'CSI: NY.

Craig Thompson

Right now the day length is exactly the same as in spring when birds key into it and begin singing. The birds are a little confused by it all and the singing isn't very intense. It only lasts a week or so each fall, but it's still cool to hear spring bird songs at this time of the year.

Conway Twitty

I go through a thousand songs to find ten for a new record.

Corbin Bleu

So many times nowadays it's about having two good songs on an album and a bunch of filler, and I wanted to make something that I felt every song on the album was fun for everybody.

Coolio

I never let any of my sons beat me at videogames.

Ani Difranco

I noticed with older songs that I perform that I'm coming from a different place with them now...it mutates the vibe and even the meaning of the same words when you have a different spirit, if the person singing is different. I like that, to be able to sing an emotionally wrought song from a more centered place, or to sing an eager, youthful song from a more experienced place. It kind of colors the songs differently, and it keeps them fresh.

Ani Difranco

These days, I find I'm applying a little more patience to my process. If I look back on my work, I can see those songs I bailed on could have been better, that had those great two verses and then I kind of coasted from there. These days, if a song is giving me trouble, I put it aside and pick it up later, and keep doing that, for a year if I have to, until it takes shape.

Ani Difranco

These days I keep a journal, so I'm constantly sketching down my thoughts, or lines that come to me...ideas for songs. And then when I have a moment to myself, I'll sit down with my guitar and open my journal, and start kind of massaging things together, and see if a song takes shape. Or sometimes, I'll just be hanging out with my guitar and come up with a chord progression or a lick, and that'll sort of sit around for a while waiting to marry itself to some words. So it's sort of haphazard and it's like...junk culture. I go around finding shiny objects and I glue them together laughs.

Ani Difranco

I mean, playing music at home and writing and hanging out with my guitar is kind of medicinal for me, but when I bring the songs to people on stage, it's very joyous.