110+ James Taylor Quotes (Soulful, Folksy And Melodic)

James Taylor was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist from North Carolina. He is best known for his soft rock and folk-influenced music, as well as his cover of Carole King's "You've Got a Friend". Throughout his career, Taylor has sold more than 100 million records and has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Top 10 James Taylor Quotes

1. Baby booty, juicy fruity, truck stop cutie, road side beauty, I'm in love with you.
2. It won't be long before another day, were gonna have a good time. And no ones gonna take that time away. You can stay as long as you like
3. Being on a boat that's moving through the water, it's so clear. Everything falls into place in terms of what's important and what's not.
4. Television news is now entertainment, and the stories are being written by the people that have a special interest in them.
5. The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time.
6. In my mind I'm going to Carolina. Can't you see the sunshine, can't you just feel the moonshine? Ain't it just like a friend of mine, to hit me from behind, and I'm goin' to Carolina in my mind.
7. I've seen fire and I've seen rain I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend But I always thought that I'd see you again.
8. Whenever I see your smiling face, I have to smile myself, because I love you, yes I do.
9. I find it a lot healthier for me to be someplace where I can go outside in my bare feet.
10. I'm trying to look at my blessings and how amazingly well against all odds things have turned out for me.

James Taylor Short Quotes

• Never give up, never slow down, never grow old and never ever die young.
• I started being a songwriter pretending I could do it, and it turned out I could.
• I know now one thing only matters in these days... true love... love and love alone.
• I believe 100 percent in the power and importance of music.
• Music is like a huge release of tension.
• If you think my music is sentimental and self-absorbed, I agree with you.
• I can take criticisms but not compliments.
• I think that we're all totally isolated beings and always will be.
• There ain't no doubt in my mind that love is the finest thing around
• I was in chemical jail.

James Taylor Famous Quotes And Sayings

I believe musicians have a duty, a responsibility to reach out, to share your love or pain with others. — James Taylor

I'm very unstable; there's no stability in a musician's life at all. You live on a bus or on the road hand to mouth and you don't know where your money's coming from. — James Taylor

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. — James Taylor

I played the cello from when I was ten, and then I bought a guitar from the father of some friends of mine and played that for a while. And then when I was fourteen or so, I bought a guitar - a real nice one - in Durham, North Carolina, that I worked with up until I was about twenty-five. — James Taylor

I don't take compliments very easily. I think most musicians suffer from low self-esteem to some extent. — James Taylor

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. — James Taylor

I don't read music. I don't write it. So I wander around on the guitar until something starts to present itself. — James Taylor

To be a musician, especially a singer-songwriter - well, you don't do that if you have a thriving social life. You do it because there's an element of alienation in your life. — James Taylor

I think people are isolated because of the nature of human consciousness, and they like it when they feel the connection between themselves and someone else. — James Taylor

People should watch out for three things: avoid a major addiction, don't get so deeply into debt that it controls your life, and don't start a family before you're ready to settle down. — James Taylor

It is a process of discovery. It's being quiet enough and undisturbed enough for a period of time so that the songs can begin to sort of peek out, and you begin to have emotional experiences in a musical way. — James Taylor

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. — James Taylor

If you're an addict, it controls your life and your life becomes uncontrollable. It's boring and painful, filling your system with something that makes you stare at your shoes for six hours. — James Taylor

Americans work a long away ahead of themselves because of the size of the place. To make any impact at all you have to promote yourself with live performances ages before a release. — James Taylor

Quart of whiskey a day for months working hard on a long poem. Wife hiding bottles, myself hiding bottles. Murderous and suicidal. Many hospitalizations, many alibis. — James Taylor

In the beginning, there was a kind of energy that - like an urgency to express myself, and the songs just couldn't be held in. But I think it changes, the nature of how that - what that energy is. And I need to court the muse in a much more serious way. — James Taylor

I sometimes wonder how many of these lifetime achievement awards you can accept before you have to do the decent thing and die. — James Taylor

I have a love-hate relationship with the Grammys because I don't see the music world as a competitive sport. — James Taylor

If the gig's going really well, I'm incredibly happy on stage and really feel good about my life and things. — James Taylor

Songwriting is too mysterious and uncontrolled a process for me to direct it towards any one thing. — James Taylor

The report falsely asserts that global warming is causing more extreme weather events, more droughts, more record high temperatures, more wildfires, warmer winters, etc., when each and every one of these false assertions is contradicted by objective, verifiable evidence. — James Taylor

There's been plenty of adversity, starting the moment he was born. He had a respiratory crisis, and it was touch and go for a week whether he would survive. I think ever since, you can feel this pulse in the guy, an almost physical enthusiasm. — James Taylor

Sobering up was responsible for breaking up my marriage. That's what it couldn't stand. — James Taylor

You have to choose whether to love yourself or not. — James Taylor

My brother Alex fell in love with rhythm and blues early and gave me a strong dose of it. — James Taylor

Deep greens and blues are the colors I choose Won't you let me go down in my dreams? — James Taylor

Certain things in life are more important than the usual crap that everyone strives for. — James Taylor

All it really needed was the proper point of view. No one's gonna bring me down. — James Taylor

I've written a number of songs over the years and it's a big part of my life, this sort of tension between a longing for home and the call for the open road. It's sort of like a tug between two families. I even love to miss my home. — James Taylor

Ireland, Italy and Brazil are the most musical places for me. They're extremely musical cultures and anything you pitch they basically catch. — James Taylor

Without a doubt, the warming of the past 100 years has been a welcome respite from a long and deadly Little Ice Age. The possibility that humans may have contributed to the recent warming does not make it any less welcome. — James Taylor

Won't you look down upon me Jesus, you've got to help me make a stand. You just got to see me through another day. — James Taylor

Maybe my biggest aim is to bring a sense of that old mystery of rock 'n' roll into the new age of today's instantaneous and fast world. — James Taylor

The sides are steep and the nights are long and cold down in the hole, light and love and the world above mean nothing to the mole. — James Taylor

To me, very much of what is artistic is people's very creative and inventive ways out of impossible situations. — James Taylor

Within my heart is carved a sculpture of your love. — James Taylor

Synchronized with the rising moon Even with the evening star They were true love written in stone They were never alone, they were never that far apart — James Taylor

Time will take your money, but money won't buy time. — James Taylor

Shower the people you love with love Show them the way that you feel Things are gonna work out fine if you only will. — James Taylor

Bruce Springsteen's a rock star. Elton John is a rock star. I'm a folk musician. Honestly, I think that's true. — James Taylor

Just nine lucky soldiers had come through the night, half of them wounded and barely alive. Just nine out of twenty was headed for home, with eleven stories to tell. — James Taylor

Try not to try too hard, It's just a lovely ride. — James Taylor

I don't know much about God. But if everything does originate with God, then certainly songs do as well. — James Taylor

If you feel like singing along, don't. — James Taylor

I'm often surprised by classical music and musicians. I've met a large number of them because my wife works for the Boston Symphony, and I'm in that world a lot now. I'm surprised at how difficult it is for people who are classically trained to read music or to memorize music, how difficult it is for them to improvise, to just go off and play. It's sort of, it's like terra incognita. They just, (makes noise) they don't get it. — James Taylor

If I were to try to identify a turning point I'd say that was it - getting clean. — James Taylor

Though the body sleeps, the heart will never rest. — James Taylor

I don't get into heavy political numbers because I don't find them lyrical. — James Taylor

Once you get that two-way energy thing going, everyone benefits hugely. — James Taylor

The SECRET to Love is in OPENING up your Heart — James Taylor

I don't play the kind of music that works in a football stadium. — James Taylor

I told you that I love you, I was only telling a lie. I'll be long gone come the crack of dawn and I believe the word is goodbye. — James Taylor

You can bring your enemies to their knees with the possible exception of the North Vietnamese. — James Taylor

The Beatles were a phenomenon, but they were also ordinary blokes like anyone else. I was lucky enough to see that side. — James Taylor

O, it's enough to be on your way. It's enough just to cover ground. It's enough to be moving on. Home: better build it behind your eyes. Carry it in your heart, Safe among your own. — James Taylor

But it's only after you've played it on the road 20 or 30 times that it becomes really finished and polished...and you realize what it means, and you get the phrasing right. — James Taylor

Songs are like myths. Myths are useful because they allow you to cast yourself and your life and your own experience. And for some people, 'Fire and Rain' speaks to them in that way. — James Taylor

I have a studio in a barn at home - we rehearse there, we film there and we record there. It's fun to hang out with my guys and see what comes out next. — James Taylor

I typically will work on a lyric in a three-ring binder. On the right side, I'll write the lyric, and on the left side, I put in alternate things...and things that might be alternates or improvements. I'll turn the page and do it again. I'll turn the page and do it again, or incorporate the improvements. Eventually, I end up with some material, and often it needs to be ordered. — James Taylor

I am myself for a living. I don't animate a character. — James Taylor

Fortunately, it doesn't seem to have made a lot of difference to my audience that I'm as bald as a billiard ball! — James Taylor

A song is what you fall in love with first, but then I think a band's ideals and a band's sense of fashion and a sense of how they treat people is what you fall in love with afterwards. — James Taylor

I don't find the songs; they find me. I just strum my guitar and wait for a lyric to come. — James Taylor

Knowing when to quit is probably a very important thing, but I just am not ready. — James Taylor

Music reminds us that the universe loves us — James Taylor

It's the nature of human consciousness to look for trouble constantly, and we find it. We find it. — James Taylor

I was a functional addict. — James Taylor

It was like the top of the roof came off the house, .. He had that effect on everyone. — James Taylor

Somehow it helps just to take something that's internal and externalize it, to see it in front of you. — James Taylor

Photographers and reporters are mostly after me. They want to know what I read and what I'm like and I don't really know myself, so how can I tell them? — James Taylor

I feel like if you let someone else create your vision, then it's not true to your band. No one can ever do as good as you want, or as good as you can yourself. — James Taylor

What I've always done as an entertainer is try to come up with things that people will find interesting, or compelling, or humorous. — James Taylor

I don't think anyone really says anything new. — James Taylor

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. — James Taylor

I think good music makes you feel free, and if people feel free when they come to a show or listen to my music, that would mean the world to me. — James Taylor

Let us turn our thoughts today to Martin Luther King and recognize that there are ties between us, all men and women living on the Earth. Ties of hope and love, sister and brotherhood, that we are bound together in our desire to see the world become a place in which our children can grow free and strong. We are bound together by the task that stands before us and the road that lies ahead. We are bound and we are bound. — James Taylor

I'm looking forward to being able to retire from being a public figure and being able to afford to be myself! — James Taylor

Shower the people you love with love. — James Taylor

Don't be sad cause your sun is down, the night doesn't need your sorrow. Don't be sad cause the light is gone, just keep your mind on tomorrow. — James Taylor

There's a lot more information at hand and sometimes there's information overload and we become desensitized to it, so things start to mean less. — James Taylor

People are making a lot of music and higher and higher quality. I can't say the same thing for how people are listening to music. People are hearing music through terrible speakers, little computer speakers, there's a lot to get back to in terms of hi-fi and people listening to better quality, technically better quality music. — James Taylor

I think it surprises a lot of people that I'm still around, you know, still - that I'm not pushing up daisies, as they say. — James Taylor

I can't thank you enough for showing up. It's not the same without you. — James Taylor

Winter, spring, summer, or fall, all you gotta do is call, and I'll be there, 'cause you've got a friend. — James Taylor

It's hard to find a way forward. When you're 18 it happens in huge chunks every day, but after 20 years, growth is much more costly. — James Taylor

One of my earliest memories was me singing 'Oh, What A Beautiful Mornin' at the top of my voice when I was seven. I got totally carried away. My grandmother, Sarah, was in the next room. I didn't even realise she was there. I was terribly embarrassed. — James Taylor

I'm always making music. I'm constantly making little musical recordings on my phone or on a little voice recorder I carry with me so I can remember these little pieces of music that eventually becomes songs. — James Taylor

It's a real wrenching thing to go from being a private person to being a public person, especially when you're being autobiographical. — James Taylor

I would advise you to keep your overhead down; avoid a major drug habit; play everyday, and take it in front of other people. They need to hear it, and you need them to hear it. — James Taylor

Things started to get out of control when I began reading that I was a superstar. — James Taylor

Life Lessons by James Taylor

1. James Taylor's music is full of life lessons, such as the importance of resilience and the power of staying true to oneself.
2. His songs often emphasize the beauty of nature and the importance of taking time to appreciate the small moments in life.
3. His life story is an inspiring example of how hard work, dedication, and a positive attitude can help you achieve your dreams.