Carly Simon

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.

There are a few things that were just sheer, unadulterated joy, like the birth of my children.

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.

You usually can’t tell what’s inspiring until you look back on it.

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.

When you get married, your loyalty, first and foremost, is to your spouse, and to the family that you create together.

Women talk about stuff on the way to the valet that it takes men 10 years to admit to each other. The depth at which women talk to and about each other is invaluable to me. With your really, really close good friends you do that fast.

It’s very easy for me to thank everyone for the incredible contribution they’ve made to my life.

Good sex is like good bridge. If you don’t have a good partner, you’d better have a good hand.

It is because I think so much of warm and sensitive hearts, that I would spare them from being wounded.

My dad used to say, ‘You wouldn’t worry so much about what people thought about you if you knew how seldom they did.

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.

Without a doubt, my richest relationships are my long-term friendships with musical partners, because we make music together. That’s what we love to do with our lives.

Relationships don’t thrive because the guilty are punished, but because the wounded are merciful.

Take it from a guy: If you’re in love with somebody, you will swim the stream, you will climb the mountain, you will slay the dragon. You’re going to get to her somehow, some way.

Cherish your human connections – your relationships with friends and family.

[a metaphor for the end of her marriage] The process of divorce is about loading a blanket, throwing it up, watching it all spin, and worrying what stuff will break when it lands.

Women prefer men who have something tender about them – especially the legal kind.

From the first time I saw a picture of him, James Taylor was it — the ultimate Orpheus of all my fantasies.

I have had young fascinations but never love.