Carly Simon

I grew up not understanding what was true and what was not true. It gave me a sense of unreality.

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

As a child I used to read Gone with the Wind over and over again. I wanted to be Scarlett O’Hara. I never wanted to believe that it was possible that there could be infidelity. I never wanted to be believe that it was even possible for a man to look another way, even for a moment. My bubble of monogamy was pierced in a harsh way.

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.

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

I’ve sworn never to read any reviews ever again except those that are pointed out to me as nice ones. I would say that most of us who are considered in the artist realm just take it so terribly, and, you know, it can kill ya!

Play what you know and then play above that.

There’s a lot of recreational Jazz going on, where cats learn a particular style and become sharks on somebody else’s language.

First I was working on classical music that didn’t move me at all. I hated it. So I decided to discover the kinds of classical music that did move me—like Chopin, Satie, Beethoven, and certain Mozart songs. Mozart would play a counterpart with his left hand while using his right to mock it. It was blue, dark, shadowy and it made me feel something. That’s when I realized music was inside me.

I’m a big fan of music, a student. I just wanna learn and keep enhancing my education about Jazz.

Life is 10% what you make it and 90% how you take it.

The blues fitted in with the early 60s, the social way of life at the time.

The blues tells a story in itself. It can make you happy or give you a feeling to swing.

The greatest thing about music is putting it out there for people to figure out.

Most of the soloists at Birdland had to wait for Parker’s next record in order to find out what to play next. What will they do now?

Art is a subject that is inundated with opinions. In fact, that’s all it is about is opinions.

The value of music is not dazzling yourself and others with technique.

It’s part of what the blues does, to write about these things. JB Lenoir was the main one in this regard – he wrote about Korea, too, in fact. Songs that reflect these current situations – in his case, racial issues for the most part: in my case, what has happened to me, and I was in Korea.

I’m trying to make music a sensual expression, not and academic experiment.

I always make it a point to pick songs on which players really shine.

I think when my brother (Claude who founded vocal sextet Take Six) got his deal and I saw him on the Grammys that was when I said, ‘oh, you know what? If he can do it then maybe I can do too’ and that’s when I really focused on trying to make it in this business.