Carly Simon

Music gave me the energy to revise, revive myself; renew, rebirth myself. It was a palliative, a relief.

The other day I came across a recording I made of a night at my apartment when I was living with Kris Kristofferson. Bob Dylan had been around earlier and we were all passing around the guitar. Whenever it came to my turn I would run into the kitchen and say I’d left the coffee on the stove or something. Shyness. Scared to perform.

Music brought me closer to the idea of God.

There ain’t no freedom when you’ve got a worrying mind.

I never identified with the feminist movement in a strong way. I just kind of lived it. I didn’t politicize it. I didn’t follow any written rules to what it meant to be a feminist. I had my own sense of what was right and wrong.

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.

Lasting love and forgiveness are two sides of the same page.

There’s a big difference between falling in love and being in love. There’s a big difference between infatuation and falling in love.

The most wonderful of all things in life, I believe, is the discovery of another human being with whom one’s relationship has a glowing depth, beauty, and joy as the years increase. This inner progressiveness of love between two human beings is a most marvelous thing, it cannot be found by looking for it or by passionately wishing for it. It is a sort of Divine accident.

I’m a little bit afraid to give my heart away right now. It’s very scary. I’m open to it, but I just want to make sure that I’m taking my time.

A friend is a second self.

Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children and no theories.

Never put more in a relationship than you can afford to lose.

If I don’t have friends, then I ain’t got nothing.

She was not for everyone, but she was for me.

It isn’t about how tall you are or how good-looking you are or whether or not you can play football. It’s about whether you can create a relationship.

The best present a man can give a woman is his undivided attention.

It’s better to be healthy alone than sick with someone else.

I would never buy Ivana any decent jewels or pictures. Why give her negotiable assets?

I probably didn’t handle things as diplomatically as I should.

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.