Carly Simon

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

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.

I always live in some kind of anticipation of something good happening.

Music brought me closer to the idea of God.

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.

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

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

[on Diana’s Death] Disbelief, refused to accept it.

Chop your own wood and it will warm you twice.

Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism — how passionately I hate them!

I always live in some kind of anticipation of something good happening.

This is your life and the clock is ticking.

There is no truth. There is only perception.

What a piece of work is man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals!

I am from the planet of elegance.

I’m slipping. I’m made of departed dreams and a stubborn fog that feels nothing like a veil.

There can be no lasting peace where hatred exists. Hatreds will continue to arise as long as the causes of war are not rooted out and exposed.

Don’t wait until you’re in a crisis to come up with a crisis plan.

Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?

The remains of the old must be decently laid away; the path of the new prepared. That is the difference between Revolution and Progress.

Without doubt, Thomas Edison is my greatest contemporary.