Top 150 Paul Simon Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “I’m always going forward toward something, and that something is usually an album, because I like to record. I probably like to record more than I like to write.”

— Paul Simon

102. “I think I have a superior brain and an inferior stature, if you really want to get brutal about it.”

— Paul Simon

103. “I lived in an attached house. My father used to drive into the wrong driveway all the time. He’d say, Damn it, how do you tell one of these houses from another?”

— Paul Simon

104. “The phrasing didn’t work as well.”

— Paul Simon

105. “Artie is a singer, and I’m a writer and player and a singer. We didn’t work together on a creative level and prepare the songs. I did that.”

— Paul Simon

106. “It’s pointless to be critical of your stuff once it’s done. I don’t spend a lot of time agonising over it. It’s of no importance once it’s finished.”

— Paul Simon

107. “The words come. Usually, it’s a long time before they come. And then when they start to come, it doesn’t take so long for it to be finished. It takes a long time to begin. And then it sort of gets finished.”

— Paul Simon

108. “I rate each album as better than the last one. That’s how I see it.”

— Paul Simon

109. “I don’t very often think I’ve done a good job. I don’t like the majority of what I do. I shouldn’t say I don’t like it, but I’m not satisfied with almost everything that I do.”

— Paul Simon

110. “The students of Gallaudet have sent a powerful message across this country!”

— Paul Simon

111. “We’ve survived by believing our life is going to get better.”

— Paul Simon

112. “When I was a young reporter, the great vice among journalists was whiskey. Today, it’s cynicism.”

— Paul Simon

113. “Every time the industry gets powerful, and corporate thinking dominates what the music is, then the music really pales.”

— Paul Simon

114. “I’m more interested in what I discover than what I invent.”

— Paul Simon

115. “Facts can be turned into art if one is artful enough.”

— Paul Simon

116. “To get the stuff out of you, especially if what you’re dealing with is yourself, requires you to open up and touch tender spots. You have to be anesthetized a little bit.”

— Paul Simon

117. “Having a track record to live up to and the history of successes had become a hindrance. It becomes harder to break out of what people expect you to do.”

— Paul Simon

118. “My whole artistic life has always been about change, change, change, move on, move on. It’s the only thing I find interesting.”

— Paul Simon

119. “Given all the facts that I’m young and I’m in good health and I’m famous – that I have talent, I have money – given all these facts, I want to know why I’m so unhappy.”

— Paul Simon

120. “The Wisdom is old, the Koran is old, the Bible is old. Disagreements? Work ’em out.”

— Paul Simon

121. “Cecilia was made in a living room on a Sony. It was like a little piece of magical fluff, bur it works. El Condor Pasa a Los Incas record that I love. Bridge is a very strong melodic song.”

— Paul Simon

122. “Although I was able to study music with teachers, I never studied lyric writing. I read poetry, and I read other lyricists. But they were never writing in the style or the form that I was interested in.”

— Paul Simon

123. “I didn’t get how big it was until I went home, turned on the television and saw it on all the news, and later that night on the front pages of all the newspapers. Then I got it.”

— Paul Simon

124. “People ask how I feel about getting old. I tell them I have the same question. I’m learning as I go.”

— Paul Simon

125. “How much can you do with two voices? You can sing thirds or you can sing fifths or you can do a background harmony.”

— Paul Simon

126. “One of the things that upset me was some of the criticism leveled at Simon and Garfunkel. I always took exception to it, but actually I agree with a lot of it.”

— Paul Simon

127. “The risk of failure is part of the fun of what I do.”

— Paul Simon

128. “Artie travels all the time. The rehearsals were just miserable. Artie and I fought all the time. He didn’t want to do the show with my band; he just wanted me on acoustic guitar.”

— Paul Simon

129. “We were always able to sing and blend well together; that’s our gift. But aside from that, we’re really two different guys.”

— Paul Simon

130. “I question what emotion Manilow touches. People are entertained by him. But are they emotionally moved? I don’t believe anything that Barry Manilow sings.”

— Paul Simon

131. “We had many more points of agreement than we had points of difference, but we did differ, and the bigger we got, the more insistent we got that each one of us should have his way.”

— Paul Simon

132. “Justice Stevens is one of those who are most sensitive to the least powerful in our society.”

— Paul Simon

133. “How can you live in the Northeast?”

— Paul Simon

134. “The public hungers to see talented young people kill themselves.”

— Paul Simon

135. “I stepped outside to smoke a J and when I came back to the room, everybody just seemed to move.”

— Paul Simon

136. “A songwriter’s supreme challenge is being complex and simple at the same time.”

— Paul Simon

137. “When I was 15, I made a solo record. It made Artie very unhappy. He looked upon it as something of a betrayal.”

— Paul Simon

138. “By the time I was 12 or 13, I felt that I was special, because I could play the guitar and write songs.”

— Paul Simon

139. “The record company stay out of my way. Whenever the record is finished, they take it.”

— Paul Simon

140. “When I began making my own albums, the songs became funkier. They were more about the streets.”

— Paul Simon

141. “Not every song I write is ecstasy. And it can happen only one time. After that, when you sing the same melody and words, it’s pleasure, but you don’t get wiped out.”

— Paul Simon

142. “I suppose an artist takes the elements of his life and rearranges them and then has them perceived by others as though they were the elements of their lives.”

— Paul Simon

143. “I don’t feel any pressure from fans. But I’m always in some kind of state of emotional turmoil. I would not describe myself as happy-go-lucky. That’s not to say that I’m not happy.”

— Paul Simon

144. “I sort of recognize it, as opposed to shaping it. Oh, that’s a good idea, that’s a good line. I wonder where I can use that. And when you get into a rhyme group like ‘not,’ you got a lot of rhymes, you got a lot of choices. The more you do it, the luckier you get.”

— Paul Simon

145. “It was easier than explaining DiMaggio’s use as a metaphor.”

— Paul Simon

146. “I see a correlation between short stories and songs, because of their length and for what they’re meant to evoke. Combine certain words with melodies and it all becomes very moving.”

— Paul Simon

147. “I would be willing to do almost anything to make Art happy. I care about our friendship. The only thing I won’t do is change the essence of my work.”

— Paul Simon

148. “I always get very calm with baseball.”

— Paul Simon

149. “The dialogue between what’s going on in the world and what’s going on internally seems to be a natural thing – well, it’s natural to me, anyway, to have these thoughts.”

— Paul Simon

150. “We’re living in a certain time, and we’re aware of it. And that’s part of what we’re aware of, along with our own personal aches and pains.”

— Paul Simon