Carly Simon

I think I had the best of James [Taylor]. I mean, I was so in love with him. Not with blinders on – I was in love with him because he is a remarkable man, and he gave me a tremendous amount.

When I was a little girl, I so wanted to be sociable, but I was scared that I wasn’t going to be able to speak a sentence because I had such a bad stammer.

One of the things about creativity is you can be in denial about these things. When I found out I had cancer, there were four hours in which I was pounding my head on the marble kitchen top saying, “I can’t believe it, I can’t believe it.” But then I felt as if this little army in uniform was flooding me. They had come to help me fight it. I felt really strong about it after that. It was one of the strongest periods of my life.

I’m constantly reemerging in my life.

There was a lot of charm in just living in a big family compound of a house. My two uncles, who were into jazz, lived in the basement, and one of them, Uncle Peter, taught me my first songs on the ukulele.

[Ben Taylor] He is an interesting combination of the two of us. His voice box is more like mine but the way his tongue sits in his mouth, and the way he pronounces words, is just like James Taylor.

It is just like man’s vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.

Freedom of speech does not protect you from the consequences of saying stupid shit

If your neighbor has a completely different view on abortion, gay marriage, stem cell research, all of those things, you still are both Americans. Neither one of you is necessarily more patriotic than the other. Neither loves their country any more than the other one does.

The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found.

Something magical has happened to me: like a dream when one feels frightened and creepy, and suddenly wakes up to the knowledge that no such terrors exist. I have wakened up.

A conclusion is the place where you got tired thinking.

No matter what side of the argument you are on, you always find people on your side that you wish were on the other.

The point of quotations is that one can use another’s words to be insulting.

Time and space are modes by which we think and not conditions in which we live.

Don’t hurry, don’t worry. You’re only here for a short visit. So be sure and smell the flowers.

I was brought up to be a gentleman. That means you know how to walk, talk and dress the part.

As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

It takes only one drink to get me drunk. The trouble is, I can’t remember if it’s the thirteenth or the fourteenth.

Everything has its limit – iron ore cannot be educated into gold.

Coaching your wife is like trying to baptize a cat.